An Evaluation of HOLD: A Remote Haptic Handshaking System for Telerobots

When communicating over long distances via telerobotic platforms, the ability to perform semantic haptic interactions is often lacking, stifling feelings of presence for those involved. One such interaction is handshaking - a haptic gesture used in various social contexts. This paper presents a within-subjects user study ( \(N=18\) ), where participants felt 14 unimodal actuated profiles and 1 no haptic (control) profile. The actuation of these profiles was facilitated by the Handshaking Over Long Distances (HOLD) system which uses radial squeeze, skin-stretch via a rocker, and vibration to simulate a handshake in the context of a telerobotic exchange. Participants’ impressions of the profiles were assessed via questionnaires. The findings from this study suggest that the type of haptic feedback (lateral skin stretch, radial squeeze, or vibration) has a larger effect on user preference and presence compared to the differences in profiles within each feedback type. All 3 feedback types provided a more preferable handshaking experience for the pilot user and increased presence compared to the control. However, radial squeeze was the most effective. This work highlights the importance of haptics, especially radial squeeze, in the remote handshaking experience and exhibits wearable haptic devices’ potential to improve the effectiveness of remote communication tools.