HaptOGrasp: A Soft Haptic Origami Grasper for Rendering Grip Force Feedback

Most commercially available haptic interfaces lack grip force feedback, which can hinder users' ability to properly judge the amount of force applied to virtual or remote objects. Recent work has explored the creation of grip force feedback devices that operate using electromechanical actuators. However, the reliance on motors and rigid components tend to result in bulky or heavy devices. In this work, we present the Haptic Origami Grasper (HaptOGrasp)- a novel lightweight, origami haptic grasper that renders kinesthetic grip force feedback via pneumatic actuation. The actuator takes the form of the Yoshimura origami pattern, which allows for linear expansion and compression. At varying grasp widths, air pressure is adjusted to reliably render between 0 N to 8 N of force to mimic normal forces felt when grasping objects. We conducted a preliminary user study, in which participants used HaptOGrasp to grip a virtual object with a specified level of force, demonstrating the potential of the device to help with telemanipulation tasks requiring specific target forces during grasping.