Haptically assisted golf putting through a planar four-cable system

P. Y. Huang, J. A. Kunkel, J. Brindza, K. J. Kuchenbecker
2011 2011 IEEE World Haptics Conference  
Individuals learning a new sport often repeat a motion hundreds or thousands of times to try to perfect their form. The quintessential example of this process may be a beginning golfer struggling to learn to putt, where strokes must be precise and consistent in order to place the ball in the hole. This paper presents a four-cable haptic device designed to help golfers learn to improve their putting accuracy. This planar three-DOF system provides feedback that consists of two Cartesian forces
more » ... one angular moment. We present the system's design and kinematics, along with a closed-loop controller that helps the user keep the putter head at the correct angle in the plane. We evaluated our design through a study in which five subjects used the system to repeatedly putt at a target both with and without assistance. While assistance did not change the mean of the putting distribution, it did significantly affect the variance for some subjects.
doi:10.1109/whc.2011.5945484 dblp:conf/haptics/HuangKBK11 fatcat:zpi5tfngajevrjd4vlm35dp2vy