The main results of the project can be summarized under three categories:
Modeling of the Human Perceptual System
We studied the basic mechanisms of touch, involving neurophysiology, psychophysics, and functional mappings in the brain. We verified e.g. the hypothesis that object recognition, movement detection and spatial localization is commonly processed in the visual ventral and dorsal extrastriate cortical areas, independently from the sensory modality. Furthermore, we found out that humans integrate sensory information in a statistically optimal manner.
Haptic Human System Interfaces
The developed haptic displays cover a large range of possible applications. E.g. the ViSHaRD10 is a hyper-redundant haptic display that offers a large workspace, high dexterity and high payload. The Multilevel Haptic Display renders surfaces at high fidelity. Tactile displays like the Shear Force Display or the Pin Actuator Display extend the current technology by providing new stimuli and new actuator technologies. Additionally, we developed sensors and actuators for tactile flow and for the use in fMRI applications. A modular concept of the developed systems was realized, resulting in a Combined Kinesthetic Tactile Display.
Software to Synthesize Complex Virtual Scenarios
The developed I-TOUCH software for benchmarking haptic research is already operational and could be used for the generation of sample haptic applications with various commercial and non- commercial haptic devices. Also, the developed interactive 3D data navigation system is already applied in clinical applications. It has been installed at the Radiology Department of the University Hospital Zurich, and has been applied to a number of patient cases to support the medical staff.
The project was sponsored by the EU CEC:
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