Positive Technology Journal

The contribution of virtual reality to research on sensory feedback in remote control

Robert W. Lindeman, Yasuyuki Yanagida, Haruo Noma and Kenichi Hosaka

Virtual Reality, Volume 9, Number 4; Date: April 2006; Pages:  203 - 213

Here we consider research on the kinds of sensory information most effective as feedback during remote control of machines, and the role of virtual reality and telepresence in that research. We argue that full automation is a distant goal and that remote control deserves continued attention and improvement. Visual feedback to controllers has developed in various ways but autostereoscopic displays have yet to be proven. Haptic force feedback, in both real and virtual settings, has been demonstrated to offer much to the remote control environment and has led to a greater understanding of the kinesthetic and cutaneous components of haptics, and their role in multimodal processes, such as sensory capture and integration. We suggest that many displays using primarily visual feedback would benefit from the addition of haptic information but that much is yet to be learned about optimizing such displays.