GroundedReach: Enabling Body-grounded Haptic Experience in Virtual Reality with an Elbow Wearable Haptic Device

Grounded haptic experience is essential for immersive virtual reality (VR), but existing solutions face a fundamental trade-off. Complex grounded devices and exoskeletons provide convincing force feedback, but limit user mobility and can be challenging to wear. In contrast, handheld and hand-wearable devices maintain user mobility but do not provide grounded resistance. We identify a subset of scenarios common to many VR applications. In these scenarios, the user stands or sits in a fixed location, such as in a cockpit. In such situations, interactions with grounded objects can be plausibly rendered by resisting the user's arm extension or flexion. We introduce GroundedReach, an elbow-wearable device that resists arm extension and flexion with a single-joint architecture. The system combines brake-based Dynamic Passive Haptic Feedback (DPHF) with a servo-controlled ratchet to render continuous resistance and rigid stopping forces. A pre-study with 15 participants shows that elbow-only resistance is as effective as combined elbow-and-shoulder resistance for perceived realism. Two further studies show that GroundedReach improves task efficiency, perceived realism, and enjoyment over visual-only feedback. Its single-joint design enables a compact peripheral that is easy to don and to share across users.