Influences of Network Delay on Cooperative Work in Networked Virtual Environment with Haptics

In this paper, we investigate influences of the network delay on haptic cooperative work in a networked virtual environment by experiment. In the work, two users carry an object cooperatively in a networked maze system by manipulating haptic interface devices. We handle two carrying methods in our experiment. In one method, the two users hold the object. In the other method, one user holds the object and the other user pushes it. We measure the operation time and reaction force, and we compare them between the two methods. Experimental results demonstrate that the former method has smaller average operation time than the latter method, but the average reaction force is larger in the former.