The sense of human touch collects an incredible and sophisticated variety of sensations, are haptic sensations, but so far most technologies that have tried to imitate them have limited themselves to simple vibrations.
Now, a team of engineers from the Northwestern University (United States) has developed a new technology that creates precise movements to imitate these complex sensations.
The details of the device have been presented this Thursday in the journal Science.
The device, compact, light and wireless, is placed on the skin and applies strength in any direction to generate various sensations, such as vibrations, stretching, pressures, landslides and torsions.
Also It can combine sensations and function quickly or slowly to simulate a sense of the most nuanced and realistic touch.
Fooded by a small rechargeable battery, the device uses bluetooth to wirelessly connect to virtual reality headphones and smartphones.
In addition, it is small and efficient, and can be combined or integrate into other electronic devices to take positions.
Researchers believe that, over time, their device could serve to improve virtual experiences, help people with visual deficiencies to navigate their environment, reproduce the sensation of different textures on flat screens for online purchases, provide tactile feedback for remote health visits and even allow people with auditory deficiencies ‘to feel’ music.
“Almost all haptic actuators are limited to touching the skin but the skin is receptive to the senses of the tact much more sophisticated”, Explains John A. Rogers, from Northwestern, device design director.
“We wanted to create a device that could apply forces in any direction, not only to click, but to push, turn and slide. We build a tiny actuator that can push the skin in any direction and in any combination of addresses. With it we can accurately control the complex sensation of the touch in a totally programmable way,” he says.
The haptic obstacle
Although in recent years visual and auditory technologies have experienced explosive growth, the haptic are stagnant and the most advanced systems only offer buzzing and this is largely due to the extraordinary complexity of human touch.
“The skin can be punctured or stretch laterally. Skin stretching can occur slowly or quickly, and can happen in complex patterns through a complete surface, such as the whole hand palm”, Explains J. Edward Colgate, pioneer of the Háptic and Co -author of the study.
To simulate that complexity, the team developed the first actuator (the part of a device that allows you to achieve movements) with full freedom of movement, that is, that it can move and apply forces in all directions throughout the skin.
In turn, these dynamic forces activate all the mechanoreceptors of the skin, both individually and combined with each other.
The device, a few millimeters of size, uses a tiny magnet and a set of wire coils arranged in the form of a nest and when electricity flows through the coils, it generates a magnetic field.
When that magnetic field interacts with the magnet, it produces enough force to move it, push it, pull it or turn it. Combining actuators in matrices, they can reproduce the feeling of pinching, stretching, tightening and hitting.
Give life to the virtual world
On the other side of the device, the equipment added an accelerometer that allows it to measure its orientation in space, information that allows the system to provide an haptic response based on the user’s context.
If the actuator is in one hand, for example, the accelerometer can detect if the user’s hand is upward or down. The accelerator can also follow the movement of the actuator and provide information about its speed, acceleration and rotation.
According to Rogers, This ability to monitor movement is especially useful when navigating spaces or different textures are touched on a flat screen.
In addition to reproducing daily touch experiences, the platform can also transfer information through the skin. Changing the frequency, intensity and rhythm of haptic feedback, the team turned the sound of music into physical touch, for example.
They also managed to alter the tones just by changing the direction of vibrations. Feeling these vibrations allowed users to differentiate between several instruments.
“We believe that our system could help close more the gap between the digital and physical world. By adding a true sense of touch, digital interactions can be more natural and attractive,” Rogers summarizes.