Towards a Touching Presence: High-Definition Haptic Systems, Project Presentation

PROJECT PRESENTATION

GENERAL INFORMATION
INTRODUCTION
KEY ISSUES
TECHNICAL APPROACH
EXPECTED ACHIEVEMENTS

"... it is touch that gives our sense of 'reality'... Not only our geometry and physics, but our whole conception of what exists outside us, is based upon the sense of touch."
Russell, 1969

GENERAL INFORMATION

Financially supported by the 5th Framework IST Programme of the European Union

Contract number: IST-2001-38040
Action line: IST-2002-6.1.1 (FET-Presence)
Project start: October 1, 2002
Duration: 36 months
Total cost: 3.255.791 Euro
Commission funding: 2.794.996 Euro
Managing Coordinator: Martin Buss - M.Buss@ieee.org
Scientific Co-Coordinators: Antonio Bicchi & Martin Buss - bicchi@ing.unipi.it, M.Buss@ieee.org

INTRODUCTION

Future multimodal fully immersive systems for Presence in remote or virtual environments will include haptics - force and touch - in addition to multimedia. Haptic sensation is very direct and less intellectually demanding than other senses. Generation of high-definition haptic feedback will be crucially important for driving a sense of Presence in next generation immersive VR and teleoperation systems.

THE GOAL:
Understanding and enabling a compelling experience of Presence not limited to "being there", but extended to "being in touch" with remote or virtual surroundings.

KEY ISSUES

A convincing "touching presence" requires multimodality: visual, auditory, and haptics (force, touch, temperature). The scientific understanding of haptics, in particular touch is lagging behind the other senses. Three major research needs:

Investigation of the neuro- and psychophysical basis of human haptic perception

Exploration of haptic and multimodal illusions to realize presence through perceptual tricks allowing circumvention of current limitations in haptic actuator technology

Investigation of new technologies and actuation paradigms for improved haptics

TECHNICAL APPROACH

Fundamental Psychophysical Research:

The psychophysical fundamentals of haptic, visuo-haptic immersion, and presence are investigated. Starting from the physics of biological contact phenomena, psychophysical and neuro-physiological methods are used to study early cortical processing of haptic perception. The necessity of cues to generate a sensation of being present and "in touch" is determined. The interaction of touch and vision in virtual environments is investigated to optimize the immersive feeling of presence. Most important are object representation, object recognition, attention, and the integration of information from vision and touch. Studies include fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) measurements using fMRI compatible actuation technology developed in this project.

Haptic Illusions:

Based on the knowledge acquired in this project the utilization of illusions for new generation haptic displays is explored. The relative importance of cues like roughness, vibration, and shape is investigated by psychophysical methods. Benefits from the combination of haptics with multimedia are to be identified. One aim is to develop a comprehensive mathematical modeling framework towards systematic design guidelines for haptic and multimodal systems.

Haptic Technology:

The fundamental research questions are validated and complemented by prototypical haptic system developments. An advanced haptic feedback system in combination with novel tactile actuators (shear force display, high bandwidth displays integrating two actuation technologies) is developed. Aiming at future haptic interfaces with completely new actuator designs a study of new physical principles for force generation is performed. The project aims at a first prototypical implementation using the candidate technology of magnetorheological fluids. The integrated high-definition haptic systems provide a testbed for future applications and serve as an experimental environment for psychophysical evaluation of haptic and multimodal illusions.

EXPECTED ACHIEVEMENTS

Better understanding of the sense of touch
Combination of haptic and visual senses
Psychophysics of "haptic illusions"
Guidelines for the design of haptic interfaces exploiting haptic illusions
Next generation haptic hardware
Multimodal integrated interfaces
High-fidelity haptic benchmark demonstrators: Soft tissue interaction; Haptic texture; Rigid edges and corners; Interactive 3D data exploration

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