Evaluation of visual and force feedback in virtual assembly verifications

This work presents an evaluation study of two different collision feedback modalities for virtual assembly verification: visual and force feedback. Forty-three subjects performed several assembly tasks (peg-in-hole, narrow passage) designed with two levels of difficulty. The used haptic rendering algorithm is based on voxel and point data-structures. Both objective - time and collision performance - and subjective measures have been recorded and analyzed. The comparison of the feedback modalities revealed a clear and highly significant superiority of force feedback in virtual assembly scenarios. The objective data shows that whereas the assembly time is similar in most cases for both conditions, force collision feedback yields significantly smaller collision forces, which indicate higher assembly precision. The subjective ratings of the participants define the force feedback condition as the most appropriate for determining clearances and correcting collision configurations, being the best suited modality to predict mountability.