Haptic technology

About: Haptic technology is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 18818 publications have been published within this topic receiving 306713 citations. The topic is also known as: haptics & haptic media.

To Have and To Hold:The Influence of Haptic Information on Product Judgments

Abstract: Haptic information, or information attained through touch by the hands, is important for the evaluation of products that vary in terms of material properties related to texture, hardness, temperature, and weight. The authors develop and propose a conceptual framework to illustrate that salience of haptic information differs significantly across products, consumers, and situations. The authors use two experiments to assess how these factors interact to impair or enhance the acquisition and use of haptic information. Barriers to touch, such as a retail display case, can inhibit the use of haptic information and consequently decrease confidence in product evaluations and increase the frustration level of consumers who are more motivated to touch products. In addition, written descriptions and visual depictions of products can partially enhance acquisition of certain types of touch information. The authors synthesize the results of these studies and discuss implications for the effect of haptic infor...

Six degree-of-freedom haptic rendering using voxel sampling

Abstract: A simple, fast, and approximate voxel-based approach to 6-DOF haptic rendering is presented. It can reliably sustain a 1000 Hz haptic refresh rate without resorting to asynchronous physics and haptic rendering loops. It enables the manipulation of a modestly complex rigid object within an arbitrarily complex environment of static rigid objects. It renders a short-range force field surrounding the static objects, which repels the manipulated object and strives to maintain a voxel-scale minimum separation distance that is known to preclude exact surface interpenetration. Force discontinuities arising from the use of a simple penalty force model are mitigated by a dynamic simulation based on virtual coupling. A generalization of octree improves voxel memory efficiency. In a preliminary implementation, a commercially available 6-DOF haptic prototype device is driven at a constant 1000 Hz haptic refresh rate from one dedicated haptic processor, with a separate processor for graphics. This system yields stable and convincing force feedback for a wide range of user controlled motion inside a large, complex virtual environment, with very few surface interpenetration events. This level of performance appears suited to applications such as certain maintenance and assembly task simulations that can tolerate voxel-scale minimum separation distances.

Skin-integrated wireless haptic interfaces for virtual and augmented reality.

Abstract: Traditional technologies for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) create human experiences through visual and auditory stimuli that replicate sensations associated with the physical world. The most widespread VR and AR systems use head-mounted displays, accelerometers and loudspeakers as the basis for three-dimensional, computer-generated environments that can exist in isolation or as overlays on actual scenery. In comparison to the eyes and the ears, the skin is a relatively underexplored sensory interface for VR and AR technology that could, nevertheless, greatly enhance experiences at a qualitative level, with direct relevance in areas such as communications, entertainment and medicine1,2. Here we present a wireless, battery-free platform of electronic systems and haptic (that is, touch-based) interfaces capable of softly laminating onto the curved surfaces of the skin to communicate information via spatio-temporally programmable patterns of localized mechanical vibrations. We describe the materials, device structures, power delivery strategies and communication schemes that serve as the foundations for such platforms. The resulting technology creates many opportunities for use where the skin provides an electronically programmable communication and sensory input channel to the body, as demonstrated through applications in social media and personal engagement, prosthetic control and feedback, and gaming and entertainment. Interfaces for epidermal virtual reality technology are demonstrated that can communicate by programmable patterns of localized mechanical vibrations.

Biological sensing with haptic feedback

Abstract: Systems and methods as described the present disclosure are capable of generating haptic feedback in response to sensing a biological signal from a vertebrate. A method according to one embodiment, among others, includes detecting a neural signal from a vertebrate. The method also includes generating a haptic effect on the vertebrate corresponding to the neural signal.

Virtual Environment Interaction Techniques

Abstract: Virtual environments have shown considerable promise as a natural (and thus it is hoped more effective) form of human-computer interaction. In a virtual world you can use your eyes, ears, and hands much as you do in the real world: move your head to set your viewpoint, listen to sounds that have direction, reach out your hands to grab and manipulate virtual objects. Virtual worlds technologies (such as head-tracking and stereo, head-mounted displays) provide a better understanding of three-dimensional shapes and spaces through perceptual phenomena such as head-motion parallax, the kinetic depth effect, and stereopsis. Precise interaction, however, is difficult in a virtual world. Virtual environments suffer from a lack of haptic feedback (which helps us to control our interaction in the real world) and current alphanumeric input techniques for the virtual world (which we use for precise interaction in the computer world) are ineffective. We are unfamiliar with this new medium we work in; we do not fully understand how to immerse a user within an application. Before we can create virtual world solutions to real world problems we must learn how to interact with information and controls distributed about a user instead of concentrated in a window in front of him. We must identify natural forms of interaction and extend them in ways not possible in the real world.