Optimal Secondary Controls Using a Configurable Haptic Interface William Durfee Department of Mechanical Engineering University of Minnesota Supported by Center for Transportation Studies Contributing players Senthil S., Rahul Akolkar

The problem Automobile dashboards getting crowded Drivers do more while driving Distractions on the rise

The solution Replace many controls with single control Control takes on visual, haptic, auditory characteristics tailored to task Properties change with task All without confusing the driver

Project tasks Design, fabricate, test configurable panel control that uses visual, aural, haptic feedback to aid user in task performance Determine how information bandwidth depends on haptic, aural properties Conduct human factors test in a driving simulator

Is it the iDrive?

Virtual product prototyping Apply virtual reality technology to create product prototypes Move beyond CAD-based visual rendering SeeHearTouch ??

Panel controls: simplified paradigm for research Fixed in space, single d-o-f, low-force, simple graphics Sufficiently complex to enable exploration of research questions

Apparatus

Perceptual experiments Impact of display “quality” on Perceived level of realism Ability of user to perform specified design tasks Understand sensory interaction in multi- model virtual environments Which sense dominates Can you trick the sensory system…to your advantage?

Compare virtual to real materials Sight/sound/touch With or without sensory conflict Probing experiments

What we learned Virtual environment does well when emulating soft materials Haptic cues are important for matching Adding visual or sound cues to haptics improves perceived quality of match Subjects tended not to use sound cues for matching

Human motor performance with visual/haptic interface What should haptic knob feel like for a selection task? Vary target haptics, background haptics Best haptics for rapid selection: target damping With good haptics, can perform secondary tasks rapidly leaving more time for primary navigation task

Technology development tasks Networked architecture for three control computers (visual/haptic/aural) New control technology (visual/haptic/aural)

Technology Haptics Matlab xPC Target for real-time control Aural Synthetic sound Summation of decaying sinusoids DirectSound for synchronized, real-time sound production Visual Windows based tools for visual effects NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600

System Architecture VISUAL PC HAPTIC PC AURAL PC SERVO- AMP MOTOR Visual C++ [Graphics scene, Chromakey, UDP communication] HUMAN TV VIDEO CARD SPEAKERS MATLAB KNOB UDP/IP xPC TARGET CAMERA network

DirectShow * DirectShow System Overview:

Virtual Scene + Chromakeyed User hand Graphic knob rotates using data via UDP from haptics controller Pro/E  Open Inventor  Direct3D X Capture video for chromakey: DirectShow tools

STISIM Driving Simulator