Background:
Many professions require dexterous manipulation and so initial and continuing hands-on training. For example, in the medical context, simulators such as animals, cadavers or phantoms have been a convenient way to learn by trial for decades. Yet these training supporting resources are expensive, non-continuously available, may raise ethical issues, and provide a limited set of study cases to practice on. These difficulties limit the opportunities of trainee populations in performing hands-on training during their curriculum. It is necessary to provide cost-efficient solutions facilitating the hands-on practice on any study case at any time as often as necessary.

For a decade, Virtual Reality (VR) simulators have been designed to overcome the aforementioned drawbacks. With such devices, which can be parameterized on-line, it becomes possible to provide an infinite set of study cases and, further, to adapt difficulty level to a specific learning curve. VR simulators have been progressively improved to provide trainees with a more realistic environment in 2D and more recently in 3D. With haptic training simulators, the additional force feedback provides a realistic interaction, which has been demonstrated as an efficient training for advanced tasks in some medical contexts. Airplane pilot simulators are a sample of a widespread solution for hands-on training on difficult situations without taking any risk and with the ability to objectively assess each performance. They have become a necessary step before training on real planes.

Goal:
This Research Topic aims to foster the design of (even more) efficient (from the pedagogical and/or usage point of view) haptic simulators.

Scope:
The simulators studied in this Topic have a hands-on training purpose, in any application field. Topics cover haptic interfaces, haptic rendering, computer graphics, virtual/augmented/mixed reality, motion capture/analysis, cognitive performance, and specific types of training like laparoscopic training.

Details for Authors:
Design contributions, generic control, design methods, user and performance evaluation, and review manuscripts are welcome.

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Frontiers in Robotics and AI

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