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 Professor Sriram Subramanian, who co-developed the haptic technology
at the University of Bristol's Computer Science Department,
explained that their device applies the principles of acoustic
radiation force, whereby sound waves produce forces on the skin
which are strong enough to generate tactile sensations.
"If you go to a night club or a rock concert, you feel the music in
your chest. And it's the same principal - you feel the sound
vibrating your chest. And instead of using the bass sounds, what we
use is low frequency ultrasound - about 40 kHz - and that way we can
target it at a precise point on your finger tip or on your palm, and
then you feel the palm vibrate and it feel precise as well."
By focusing complex patterns of ultrasound emanating from a
specially designed pad, the air disturbances can be manipulated into
floating 3D shapes that can be felt.
The Bristol-based company recently announced the closing of a
£600,000 (approx. 918,000 USD) seed round of investment. The
financing allowed the company to accelerate the development of the
Ultrahaptic device, including substantially improving the computing
power and performance of the technology.
"Typically what we've done is try to create one focal point at a
time. And that's been computationally quite expensive until now.
What we've doubled up right now is a way we can speed up this
process substantially. And that means that, instead of doing one at
a time, I can do hundreds at a time. And when I do hundreds at a
time and put a hundred focal points around your finger tip or around
your palm, those hundred feel like a circle. And if I track your
palm and move them up and down, and if I change the diameter of
these focal points, you start feeling like you are going through a
sphere. And this is how we generate shapes," said Subramanian.
While the team's device is still in the prototype stage, they
believe it has a diverse range of potential real world applications;
with touchable holograms, immersive virtual reality that you can
feel and complex touchable controls in mid-air all possible
applications of the system. They say it could even enable surgeons
to explore a CT letting them to feel a disease, such as a tumour,
using haptic feedback.
Touchless technologies, including virtual and augmented reality
(AR), have become increasingly advanced in delivering a
multi-sensory experience to the user. But while sight and sound can
be replicated using gadgets such as Facebook's Oculus Rift virtual
reality headset and Google Glass, the sense of touch has long been
seen as a step too far into science fiction. But the team at
Ultrahaptic hopes to change all that and say their device could
offer the crucial sense of touch to existing virtual technologies.
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"You can see the object and maybe you can interact with this object
visually, but you don't feel anything. What we're offering is that
missing feeling these holographic objects. That I think is the
crucial distinction as well as the advantage of what we're offering.
We're not saying get rid of the holographic display. What we're
saying is, attach our system to it and then you can start feeling
objects as well as seeing them. This gives you better finesse,
control," said Subramanian.
He added that as the trend towards touchless technologies continues,
there will be a need for some sort of tactile, sensory feedback. For
example, if you push a virtual button that can't be felt, how can
you be sure that the button has actually been pushed? Ultrahaptics
believe they have the solution.
"There is a tendency towards doing things touchless. One of the
advantages of having a touchless system is that the interaction
comes to you; instead of going and touching the light switch, you
just wave your hand and the light comes on. And this is going to be
ubiquitous, and as it becomes ubiquitous people are going to need
this kind of tactile feedback."
Ultrahaptics is currently running an evaluation programme to
determine applications for its device, with several component
manufacturing companies enrolled. The company plans to license the
technology to a diverse array of markets including consumer
electronics, home appliance and automotive.
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