Haptics (Touch) Update from ACM

 A favorite topic, its part of how we understand reality, with good update here commissioned by ACM:

A Touch of Reality   By Samuel Greengard  Commissioned by CACM Staff

Haptics introduces ways to use virtual reality more effectively, to use robots for a wider array of tasks, and to produce biomechanical replacements for missing limbs that can replicate a sense of feel.

Imbuing robots and other machines with human-like sensory capabilities is an incredibly difficult task. In recent years, machine vision, hearing, and speech have advanced remarkably. Yet, the ability to building machines that can touch and feel the way people do has proven elusive.

All of this is about to change. Haptics—the use of technology to simulate touch, feeling, and motion—is finally hitting its stride. "A confluence of new actuator and sensor technology, along with ever increasing computing power, is pushing the technology into the mainstream," says Jake Rubin, founder and CEO of HaptX, a developer of haptics systems for robots and virtual reality (VR).

The technology introduces ways to use VR far more effectively—particularly for training in industrial settings. Yet haptics also makes it possible to use robots for a wider array of tasks, and to produce biomechanical limbs that replicate a sense of feel. "We are much closer to creating systems that talk to the brain or interact with nerves in ways that seems realistic," says Gregory A. Clark, director of the Center for Neural Interfaces at the University of Utah.

Out of the Body

Simulating human touch is an incredibly complex endeavor. It requires a deep understanding of physiology and neurobiology along with an ability to translate electrical signals into and out of binary code. Although VR, robotics, and biomechanical limbs incorporate and communicate touch in different ways, there's a common denominator, Clark says: a system ultimately must convince the brain that the signals flowing into it from machines are real.

HaptX, for example, has developed highly specialized gloves that use 130 tiny actuators and microfluidic air channels embedded in a fabric. The gloves displace the skin to 2 mm with no latency, producing ultrarealistic sensations; they also offer 6 degrees of freedom. "When you touch a virtual object, the pixel-like bubbles on this material inflate or deflate precisely to produce the same forces over the same area that that object would produce if it touched your hand in real life," Rubin explains.  ... '