An objective quality evaluation method for haptic rendering system: taking hardness rendering as an example

Quality evaluation is very important for haptic rendering. In this paper, an objective evaluation method for a haptic rendering system based on haptic perception features is proposed. In the method, the haptic rendering process is compared to the real world perception process in a simple standardized procedure based on feature extraction and data analysis. A complete evaluation process for a simple haptic rendering task of pressing a virtual spring is presented as an example to explain the method in detail. Compared with the traditional objective method based on error statistics, the method is more concerned about the consistency of human subjective feelings rather than physical parameters, which makes the evaluation process more consistent with the haptic perception mechanism. The results of comparative analysis show that the method presented in this paper is simple, gives reliable results reflecting the consistency with subjective feeling and has a better discrimination ability for different kinds of devices and algorithms compared with the traditional evaluation methods.