Colombo, M., Satilmis, P., Davies, R., Yordanov, B., Williams, I., Harvey, C., 2022.

Object Detection Systems Informing Users of Guardian Space Dangers Through Haptic Displays

Modern virtual reality applications rely on the guardian space to guarantee safety to the users during inter-actions. The current state of technology adopts virtual walls or meshes projected to the virtual space to alert users when their reach approaches the boundaries of the guardian space, requiring constant attention to the visual display. In this paper, we explore haptic displays as an alternative modality to alert users about dangers in the guardian space. We adopt object detection to analyse the scene within the guardian space, detecting unseen objects entering the space, i.e. a cat approaching the user's surroundings, causing a haptic display to signal the user the direction of the danger. We develop a proof-of-concept system capable of alerting a user of changes to the scene within the guardian space, demonstrating the feasibility of the system and its potential applications for extended reality platforms.