Reconfigurable Haptic Interface System

Haptic feedback has great potential to enhance human interaction with virtual environments. superior training, enhanced presence, and increased intuitiveness are proven advantages of force feedback. While highly effective, haptic sensations are rarely incorporated into virtual reality systems. This is due to a lack of reconfigurable hardware and software that can be adapted to address diverse tasks with minimum development effort. Immersion Corporation proposes the development of a modular hardware system and software environment which will allow developers to easily build virtual environments which possess haptic (tactile and kinesthetic) qualities. The proposed system will allow users to compose new haptic sensations and further, to implement, test, share, and even collaboratively re-design their associated haptic percepts. Fundamentally, this effort will accomplish the following: define the hardware modules and software development tools used to generate the haptic components of virtual objects so that force feedback can be rapidly and effectively applied to a broad range of virtual reality tasks. The resulting reconfigurable haptic interface system will satisfy multiple tasks and will support virtual testing of weapon and vehicular systems. The proposed system will greatly enhance the realism and/or effectiveness of virtual environments. This includes virtual reality, scientific visualization systems, computer aided design packages, medical simulation and training equipment, vehicle simulators, and entertainment applications. An adaptable and capable software engine will catalyze the commercialization of haptics.