Events Calendar

Title: Wearable haptic devices and novel rendering paradigms for enabling touch-based interactions with virtual objects

Abstract: Recent advances in extended reality (XR) technologies make seeing and hearing virtual objects commonplace, yet strategies for synthesizing haptic interactions with virtual objects continue to be limited. Two design principles govern the rendering of believable and intuitive haptic feedback: movement through open space must feel “free” while contact with virtual objects must feel stiff. This talk presents a novel multisensory approach that conveys proprioception through illusory visual feedback and tactile feedback through referred stimuli to the wrist via a bracelet interface. I’ll present Tasbi, a wearable multi-sensory haptic device that conveys squeeze and vibration. In addition, I’ll discuss our multi-sensory pseudo-haptic rendering paradigm, and present recent findings that demonstrate that users reliably discriminate the stiffness of virtual buttons when provided with multisensory pseudohaptic feedback. This multisensory approach, which leaves users' hands unencumbered, provides a flexible framework for synthesizing a wide array of touch-enabled interactions in XR, with great potential for enhancing user experiences.

Bio: Marcia O’Malley is the Thomas Michael Panos Family Professor in Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, and Electrical and Computer Engineering, and the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation in the George R. Brown School of Engineering at Rice University. She received her BS from Purdue University, and her MS and PhD in from Vanderbilt University, all in Mechanical Engineering. Her research is in the areas of haptics and robotic rehabilitation, with a focus on the design and control of wearable robotic devices for training and rehabilitation. She is a Fellow of ASME, IEEE, and AIMBE. She currently serves as associate editor-in-chief for the IEEE Transactions on Haptics and as the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation Conference Editorial Board