Yu Yuan’s Mission is to Improve Lives Through Virtual Reality
IEEE Senior Member Yu Yuan, who chairs the IEEE Digital Senses Initiative, believes so much in the benefits of virtual reality, augmented reality, and human augmentation technologies to enhance and extend people’s sensory capabilities that he’s devoting his life to helping advance them. In April he launched Senses Global Corp. in Shenzhen, China, to focus on these three areas.
What are some of the challenges you’re facing?
Fundamental challenges for AR include not only making virtual objects look real but also allowing smooth interactions between virtual objects and real things. For example, a virtual object thrown against a real wall should cover the wall appropriately as it reaches the wall and bounces back.
Developers are solving this problem with SLAM [simultaneous localization and mapping], a series of complex computations and algorithms that employ sensor data to continuously scan and learn about the environment. At the same time, a person should also be able to augment the environment with useful digital content—which depends on the person’s location in the space.
Eye-tracking technologies are also being applied to understand in which direction or at which object a person is looking. This could allow for fine-tuning in both the pictures being rendered on the head-mounted display and the interactions between the objects and the person.
The grand challenge for VR is to mimic human senses. Developers are doing fairly well with sight and hearing, but touch, smell, and taste are far from perfect. A perfect immersive virtual world won’t be created until we learn how to use non-invasive or even invasive brain-machine interface technologies to mimic all the senses perfectly.
What will your startup focus on?
We are building our intellectual property portfolio in the areas of VR, AR, and human augmentation technologies. Senses Global will also serve as an integrator and broker. We help other tech companies, especially those at the startup stage, to find partners, clients, and investors.
My company also joined the IEEE-SA as an advanced corporate member—as a way to participate in standards development and build relationships with other companies. I understand the importance of collaborating with others.
See the full story here: http://theinstitute.ieee.org/members/profiles/yu-yuans-mission-is-to-improve-lives-through-virtual-reality