Haptic armband lets you feel the sensation of stroking in VR
Virtual reality has a long way to go before it feels like reality. ... Heather Culbertson hopes to change that.
At the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, Culbertson and her team of graduate students are working on a “haptic” armband that gives you a sense of touch. It’s not using an actuator, which gives you a sense of buzzing like in typical video game controllers. Rather, Culbertson has engineered a prototype arm so that it feels like the sensation of a finger moving along your arm. I tried it out on a recent trip to Culbertson’s lab. The current prototype is a sleeve that wraps around your forearm and has a row of wired small speakers on it. It mimics the sensation of a finger moving along your arm.
“That’s what we focus on in this lab, a way to create hardware and signals that make haptic interactions feel natural, mimicking what you feel in real life, said Culbertson, who is an assistant professor of computer science, aerospace, and mechanical engineering. “With this device, it’s a set of voice coil actuators. These are capable of playing vibration. They’re essentially speakers.”
the lab is looking to improve social VR, like when you tap someone on the shoulder to reassure the person. She calls it social haptics.
See the full story here: https://venturebeat.com/2018/09/02/haptic-armband-lets-you-feel-the-sensation-of-stroking-in-vr/