GuideBand: Intuitive 3D Multilevel Force Guidance on a Wristband in Virtual Reality

For haptic guidance, vibrotactile feedback is a commonly-used mechanism, but requires users to interpret its complicated patterns especially in 3D guidance, which is not intuitive and increases their mental effort. Furthermore, for haptic guidance in virtual reality (VR), not only guidance performance but also realism should be considered. Since vibrotactile feedback interferes with and reduces VR realism, it may not be proper for VR haptic guidance. Therefore, we propose a wearable device, GuideBand, to provide intuitive 3D multilevel force guidance upon the forearm, which reproduces an effect that the forearm is pulled and guided by a virtual guider or telepresent person in VR. GuideBand uses three motors to pull a wristband at different force levels in 3D space. Such feedback usually requires much larger and heavier robotic arms or exoskeletons. We conducted a just-noticeable difference study to understand users’ force level distinguishability. Based on the results, we performed a study to verify that compared with state-of-the-art vibrotactile guidance, GuideBand is more intuitive, needs a lower level of mental effort, and achieves similar guidance performance. We further conducted a VR experience study to observe how users combine and complement visual and force guidance, and prove that GuideBand enhances realism in VR guidance.