Researcher team Carnegie Melon University I want to bring a tactile sensation to the mouth of the Metaverse.
Yes — with the help of students and faculty members Future interface group Inside the university Human Computer Interaction InstitutePeople hanging out in virtual reality space can quickly drink from a fountain, brush their teeth, or feel a crawling insect.
It’s all thanks to the ultrasonic phased array. This is a technology that allows you to concentrate the sound energy in the air on your lips, mouth, teeth, and tongue to create sensations such as taps and continuous vibrations without having to place the device on or inside your mouth. The crescent-shaped array can be attached to the bottom of an existing virtual reality headset so that ultrasonic transducers can focus a beam of sound energy on the mouth.
As the name implies, FIG Lab wasn’t the first to explore VR applications for haptics, a field that studies tactile and technology-based reproduction methods. Even the tactile sensation of the mouth is not new in the Metaverse. But the second year CMU Robotics Research Institute PhD student Vivian Shen Said Technical.ly FIG Lab is the first product to leverage an ultrasonic phased array and integrate it into a VR headset for the tactile sensation of the mouth.
“Currently, the only commercial tactile path in practice is basically vibration. Therefore, the controller vibrates when it touches something, vibrates when it hits something, or feels something. It vibrates when it happens, “Shen said. “And that’s not what we feel in our daily lives.”
Ultrasonic phased arrays cannot simulate a more detailed mouth sensation that covers a large surface area (for example, a kiss), but because they do not require additional technology to be installed above or inside the mouth. , The barrier to entry will be lower. Makes the overall experience more comfortable for the user. But that doesn’t mean there’s no place for those approaches, Shen said — they’re just not widely and commercially adopted so far.
“If you want to make virtual reality a more immersive and realistic experience, you need all sorts of tactile studies,” she said.
The work is included in a recent paper by CMU postdoctoral fellow Shen. Craig Schultz Associate professor Chris HarrisonReceived the Best Paper Award in the research team Computing Machinery Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsWas held earlier this month.
Users brush their teeth in the Metaverse using an ultrasonic phased array developed by CMU’s FIG Lab. (Provided photo)
Creating mouth sensations, or even tactile sensations, in the Metaverse is fun for an immersive gaming experience, but it can also enhance important simulations, Shen said. Especially for the tactile sensation of the mouth, one example of areas where Shen predicts that the technique will benefit in the future is dental simulation for field students and trainees. She said the device could teach them how to clean and treat patients without the need for real human patients.
“Our device isn’t expressive enough to actually emulate tooth cleaning,” Shen said. “But if we can enable these types of tactile sensations, training simulations will be much more realistic and much more convenient.”
Shen believes that the opportunity that the Metaverse creates to connect people in new ways that may be physically separated is worth exploring.
For now, Shen said the lab will continue to improve the ultrasonic boards it has been working on and invite users to the lab for feedback. From now on, she and other researchers have begun to look at other aerial tactile sensations, creating tactile sensations for things that don’t really need to be touched by the user, such as her fans.
“I think this is an interesting way to make people feel something without having to wear an entire suit or something. It’s much more restrictive.” Shen Talked about the work of the laboratory in the field.
And although the mention of the Metaverse can disperse sparks Eye roll Shen believes that innovation in this area is important because technology will certainly exist in the future on some parts of the Internet these days.
“I disagree with the idea that the Metaverse will become something everyone has to overcome and we spend hours and hours every day. [life on it]However, it is worth considering the possibility of enhancing remote training and simulation and creating opportunities to connect people in new ways that may be physically separated. Points out how social media has changed the world by creating new ways to connect people around the world.
“Now I can send a message to anyone in the world in seconds, stay in touch with friends who have left the country, and it’s really connected to the world,” she said. “Similarly, as VR becomes more common, I think VR will foster that connection.”
Sophie Burkholder is a 2021-202 corps member of Report for America, an initiative of the Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Heinz Foundation. -30-
