1. Introduction

There is a growing need for defining evaluation standards for haptic applications. The purpose of evaluation procedures for haptic interfaces is to achieve both qualitative and quantitative statements on haptic rendering realism and performance. However, it is challenging to define a performance indicator since technical device evaluation is not straightforward to interpret the results in terms of perceived rendering quality. While a haptic device may come with specifications for its mechanical and electrical properties, no clear relationship between these properties and application-specific performance is available from neither commercial nor academic literature. In this chapter, similar problems of haptic interface performance evaluation are investigated in depth and the objectives of this book are provided.