Key takeaways and insights from the 10th IEEE World Haptics Conference 2023

From 10th to 13th of July we joined the IEEE World Haptics Conference 2023, the premier international Conference covering all aspects of haptics, including the fundamental scientific findings, technological developments, algorithms and applications. Back from this insightful experience, we are sharing a summary and some takeaways and insights related to the Conference in this article!

News from our booth

We have recently released new features for TouchDIVER haptic glove, including improved finger tracking, a more user-friendly middleware interface, and new Unity and Unreal SDK options.
At our booth, we received lots of positive feedback from researchers, companies and colleagues concerning our latest improvements and demos.

We also had the chance to strenghten the connections within the international haptic community by joining the industry session, where our founder Guido Gioioso gave a speech to present our TouchDIVER device technology and related use cases.

TouchDIVER mentioned in Teleoperation research use case

The research group from the Department of Computer, Control, and Management Engineering Antonio Ruberti of the University of Rome “La Sapienza” presented a paper titled “Deconstructing haptic feedback information in robot-assisted needle insertion in soft tissues”, which will be published on IEEE Transactions on Haptics (ToH). The study evaluates the role and effectiveness of different types of haptic feedback in presenting relevant feedback information during needle insertion in soft tissues through a remotely operated robot. Cutaneous sensations were provided by three different devices, among which the TouchDIVER (pressure/vibration/temperature) interface.

We were thrilled to see our customer’s academic research advancements, proving that our TouchDIVER can be adopted as a human-machine interface in both teleoperation scenarios and VR/AR applications. Specifically, in teleoperation scenarios, TouchDIVER gives the operator a natural and comfortable way to control the slave system, while providing feedback on the interactions the robot is having with the environment. In VR/AR the device increases the level of realism of the experiences and the user’s engagement (also emotional engagement).

Overall, the haptics community is confirming an increasing interest towards the multimodal feedback and thermal feedback approaches. In this context, we are honored to be recognized as pioneers by the community. We are the only company on the market proposing devices that provide multimodal feedback, combining forces, textures and thermal cues.

Next stop: SIGGRAPH exhibition from 6-10 August 2023 in Los Angeles!