O'Malley, Marcia K2019-05-172019-05-172018-052018-04-18May 2018Bradley, Josh Mark. "Enhancing Human-Machine Interaction with Wearable Haptic Devices." (2018) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105730">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105730</a>.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/105730This thesis presents work done with wearable haptic devices for the purpose of enhancing human-machine interaction. Haptic devices capitalize on the unrealized potential of our body--and particularly our skin--to perceive stimuli by contact. To address the challenge of training motor skills, my first area of focus deals with the question of how best to provide guidance information for trajectory-following tasks. Results indicate that spatially-separated assistance rendered through a tactile device can be as effective for guidance as a the same information presented through a kinematic device. In addition to that, exploring the concept of communicating with a wearable haptic device, the remainder of this thesis focuses on a novel, multi-modal, wearable haptic device, MISSIVE, which is capable of rendering information-rich haptic cues. My experiments demonstrate that this approach can increase perceptual accuracy compared to a uni-modal vibrotactile system of comparable size and that users prefer the multi-modal device.application/pdfengCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.hapticsguidancecommunicationwearable hapticstactilekinestheticexoskeletonhaptic cueingmultimodalskin stretchsqueezevibrotactileThesis2019-05-17