Measurement of Human Force Perceptive Characteristic and Development of a Force Display for Virtual Catch-Ball System

Virtual reality technology has been widely applied in telerobotics, sports training and so on. In the present paper, we consider a virtual catch-ball as an application of virtual reality. The virtual catch-ball system has three subsystems ; they are a pitch-ball subsystem, a catch-ball subsystem and HMD (Head Mounted Display) system with 3D images. We develop a force display of which structure was very simple. In the force display, the force is realized by a spring. Using the developed force display the human force perceptive characteristic on hand is measured. The experimental results suggested that human perceptive sensitilvity of force is depended on the hand position and the presented force volume. From the results of experiment, some important points are suggested to realize a force display with high performance.