The Missing Touch to VR: Touch

Touch is an extremely important sense to humans. You may not realize it, but the way you perceive the world is influenced by touch. It tells us what’s hot, what’s cold, how heavy something is, the texture and shape of an object, and helps us feel pain.
So when we think about technology such as virtual reality, we are able to separate the experience from real life because of the lack of touch.
This is why the use of haptics, technologies that create the stimulation of touch, is so important.
But when this type of technology is brought up, many people think of devices like phones and game controllers. Phones vibrate when you, for example, click a button. Game controllers vibrate during certain games.
But what if I said that you can do much more with haptics than just vibrate?
Imagine being able to feel virtual items the same way you feel things in real life!
This is where the field of Haptic Technology comes in.
What is Haptic Technology?
Haptic technology, often shortened to just haptics, stimulates touch by using haptic actuators. These actuators send forces, vibrations, and/or motions to the skin. Before going into the specifics of the technology, it’s important to understand how touch on human skin actually works.
Kinesthetic Feedback
Go ahead and pick up something around you. Think about how heavy it is, the size of it, the position you’re are holding the object in. These are all types of kinesthetic feedback. This type of feedback comes from your muscles, joints, and tendons, and it aids the information you get from visual cues.
Tactile Feedback
When you pick up an object, you can feel its texture and the amount of pressure you’re exerting onto it. This is due to tactile feedback. This type of feedback comes from surfaces such as the tip of your fingers. There are sensors within this part of the skin that help your brain identify things like vibrations and texture.
Force Feedback
Force feedback is just a way to describe both kinesthetic and tactile feedback. When it comes to stimulating touch, this is the kind of feedback that is needed in order to make the sensations feel as real as possible.
How Haptic Systems Stimulate Touch
Haptic systems in general use what is called haptic rendering. This means that they use a software that determines what forces occur when a user, in virtual reality, touches an object. These forces are then applied to the user. In order for them to work, Haptic systems make use of sensors. These sensors generate an electrical current that creates a response, resulting in vibration.
But haptic technology has advanced beyond simple vibrations. In fact, some haptic systems can use a force feedback loop that goes as far as manipulating the user’s movement. Say goodbye to those old-fashioned game controllers! Here are some haptic systems and a description of how they work:
Haptic Gloves
If you’re thinking Ready Player One, then you’re right.
The company HaptX has been working on developing a haptic glove that can be used along with VR systems. When the glove is put on, a software is first used to find where your hand is in space. Then, essentially, as you touch objects in a virtual reality game, a panel of tactors within the glove respond accordingly. There are five panels (one for each finger), and twelve tactors on each panel. Based on what you touch in the game, each tactor fills with a certain amount of air to stimulate that touch in real life.

Ultrasound Haptics
You mean the stuff they use in hospitals?
Well, yes, but no.
Picture this: Using your hand as a touch screen. Researchers are currently working on haptic systems that transmit ultrasounds through your body, and then generate tactile sensations on the hand.
Ultrasonic haptic feedback relies on the use of, well, ultrasounds. These are basically sound waves that have frequencies so high that humans can’t hear them.
Ultrasounds are used to create a disturbance in the air that humans can feel when they touch the area of the disturbance.
Think about a ray of loudspeakers lying with the speaker part facing up. Now say you decide to play a song through those speakers. When you do this, their diaphragms vibrate and push on the air above them, resulting in a pressure wave.
This is similar to the way ultrasonic haptic feedback words. When you put together an array of transducers (speakers), a pressure wave is transmitted into the air. The waves from each transducer are modified so that they are centered on one specific point you can actually feel.
Ultrasounds can also be used to make different shapes in the air. By modifying where the waves are in the air, researchers have been able to create different shapes that humans can actually feel.
Ultrahaptics is a company working extensively on this. Check them out!

Haptic Pens
Haptic pens are being used, especially by doctors in training, because of the important haptic feedback the provide. Pressure sensors in the pens are used to send feedback to the user. The user will then be able to respond accordingly.

The Future
The future for haptics is extremely bright. There are several areas in which this technology can be used. This includes:
- Hospitals: With technology such as the haptic pen, doctors can perform surgeries from miles away. The pen provides enough information that the doctor can feel the texture of each tissue. It also helps improve their training by allowing them to practice (and feel) what it’s like virtually.
- Education: There are some things, especially in math and science, that you have to physically feel in order to gain a better understanding. This includes scientific subjects. Haptic technology can help improve education by helping students use physical approaches to learning new topics.
- Gaming: We already see haptics starting to get involved with virtual reality. As research advances, the sensations provided by haptic technologies can become more realistic and create a more immersive virtual experience.
Key Takeaways:
- Touch is an important sense to humans, and haptics makes use of this to create a more immersive experience with VR.
- Haptic systems use haptic rendering to bring the sensation of touch to real life. This is key when it comes to things like haptic gloves for VR and haptic pens.
- Ultrasonic haptic feedback works by targeting pressure waves to one specific focal point in the air above.
- While haptic technology may seem irrelevant in the growing field of technology, there are actually multiple uses for it and it will become key in the future for hospitals, education, gaming, and more.
But wait, there’s more!
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