Haptic Feedback for Bike Guidance
Stanford University, ME327 - Design and Control of Haptic Systems, Spring 2019
We investigate the potential of a haptic device to guide a biker in uncertain environments. A gyroscope is mounted on a bike frame, and error between the biker’s current and desired roll angles is input to an actuator control system. The user receives vibration feedback with varying intensity to guide his movement. In a small user study, we compare human response to three feedback conditions: 1) visual, 2) haptic, and 3) haptic and visual. Diminishing RMSE throughout the haptic-only trials suggest that a learning phase occurs, and frequency response data indicate that using only haptic cues results in a smaller gain with a lower cutoff frequency. Results from this study can inform future untethered, multi-rider systems for safe bike riding and navigation.
