Haptic Technology
Simulation is becoming an increasingly accepted method for training personnel for complex or high-risk tasks. With the invention of VR, such simulations become more and more immersive. One significant limitation to the advance of this science is the challenges associated with simulating the touch or feel. But why is touch so important? The feeling of touch is extremely important since more than half of our brain dedicated to sensory experiments but also without touch, we are unable to learn things as efficiently as we do now. A study done by the Urban Study institute states that without touch at a young age, it can slow down growth and with the lack of touch could have an increase in aggression. Moreover, children with less contact at the age of an infant could also result in the increase of autism in the later years of their lives.
What is Haptic Technology?
Many people are familiar with the term haptic technology, but they might not know exactly what it means. Haptic technology is the science/technology of simulating touch. Haptic technology can also simulate pain, heat, can simulate tension etc. When we use our hands, there are 2 types of feedback. Kinesthetic and tactile. Haptic technology is the technology that tries to replicate these 2 types of feedback to help us in our daily lives. Kinesthetic is the feedback that tells us position, orientation and force/tension. Tactile tells us if there is contact, pressure, shear, slip vibration and temperature. Haptics is enabled by actuators that apply these different types of feedback back to the skin for us to feel. Haptic technology allows you to feel certain things even though it is not actually there. It can be used in many different ways, from education to making gaming more realistic.
How is Haptic Technology used?
The benefits of haptic technology are almost endless. Haptic technology can exponentially make virtual reality more realistic. It can also be utilized to help children experience new things without the problem of how to get it. For example, if students were learning different types of springs ex. compression, extension, torsion, and constant force springs, they can use haptic to feel different tension and feeling of it to better understand things like this. Moreover, haptic technology can give those with prosthetics a sense of touch and allows then to feel what is there. Furthermore, haptic technology can also be used to buy things. If you were ordering a sweater from amazon, you could use haptic technology to feel the texture of the thing you’re buying to help you decide on which you plan on buying. Regarding its medical applications, it can be used to help surgeons feel the tension in the muscle when they are doing operations that use robots to control. Additionally, we could use haptic technology along with VR to help teach surgeons how to do operations and to make the learning more realistic and immersive.
How is Haptic Technology made?
Haptic technology can be implemented in our everyday lives through many . different things. For example, air vortex rings. A machine creates air vortex rings that aren’t seen and aims it at you and you can feel the air hitting you. You could also use a phased array of ultrasound transducers to create focal points in mid-air that allows you to pressure from the ultrasound.
In conclusion, Haptic technology is a diverse way of science. We can use it for many different things and could help us teach, entertain and help surgeons with surgery. It can be employed into an everyday object and I believe that it can dramatically make our lives more promising for humanity.
