Haptic feedback and perception
April 10, 2023 10:01 AM   Subscribe

I would like to learn more about design principles for haptic feedback systems. I have a reasonable technical foundation (control theory, signal processing, sensors and actuators etc) but know very little about how that all actually translates into human perception. Do you know of any material (books, articles, etc) that can help bridge the gap?

For instance, some things I'm curious about:
How do you select a waveform that (for instance) produces the right tactile "feel"?
How can you quantify and measure quality of haptics, aside from having a human around to say whether or not it "feels right"?
What do people mean when they say it feels "right/good", how does that vary among the broader human population, and what sort of factors drive that variation?
How do you determine the minimum hardware requirements (e.g. sensor bandwidth, actuator strength) to produce a particular feedback experience that "feels right"?

Of course, this is not an exhaustive list - I'm sure there are many things I don't even know I don't know, you know? Happy to take any and all recommendations for material that captures the spirit of this question. Thanks!
posted by btfreek to Science & Nature (2 answers total) 2 users marked this as a favorite
 
I can't point you to any specific material here but the US Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) considers research into human interface and performance to be one of their key pillars of work.

They tend to do a lot of work on haptics because that's a critical feedback channel for pilots. This might be a good place to start.
posted by JoeZydeco at 7:00 AM on April 11, 2023


You may find looking for projects and tracking backward to thought leaders and theories helpful.

The US Army is (predictably) another leader in visual/touch/haptic systems e.g. A Sandtable as Fun as a Sandbox. This is 2014 so prob. a mature tech by now. I've seen several videos and articles on this project and its quite amazing, I imagine so.many.applications.

[google search] - haptic site:.arl.army.mil (source of the sandbox above) has 3 links to haptic projects. I suspect there are more projects which don't use the word 'haptic' though.

Tangible Computing is another term in use e.g. Miller et al Tangible Immersion for Ecological
Designs
[3.5Mb pdf on cumincad.org]. Cumincad runs CAD (Computer Aided Design) conferences and collates papers & research. Citations of the Miller paper (and from co-authors) go some very interesting places haptically speaking.

Also this paper and its references expose a lot of theory and ideas Tangible Globes for Data Visualisation in Augmented Reality [research gate .pdf link]

There's also a Peter Jackson (New Zealand) project called mudbox (since bought by Autodesk and shelved for a while and now being sold) but there are open source branches of that, along with a lot of theoretical underpinning.

Hope something is useful.
posted by unearthed at 12:28 PM on April 26, 2023


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