Validation and Usability Assessment of The HapticPalm, a Wearable Device for Hand Palm Force Feedback

This paper presents the results of a series of tests for the assessment of a wearable haptic device for hand palm. This part of the hand is fundamental in several grasping and manipulation tasks, and in tactile exploration tasks, even if it is still less exploited in haptics applications than other parts of the hand. The assessed device has a parallel tendon-based mechanical structure actuated by three motors. The contact surface is modular can be easily changed to simulate the contact with different surface shapes. The aim of this work is to verify that all design specifications are respected according with user opinions in terms of realism, mobility, interchangeability and users' acceptance, using different standardized survey protocols.