Merkel Haptic SystemsTouching lives...virtually

Haptics with Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality is an immersive simulation technique with a realistic feel of three-dimensional environment, which is created with preferred software’s and hardware’s. It provides an environment (real or imaginary) simulating a user’s physical presence in such a way that it allows the user to interact with the VR world.

The virtual feel and experience of VR is achieved by tracking the user’s motions, particularly the head and eye movements. It is an emerging technology and we looking for ways to incorporate this in the field of medical simulations.

The main application of VR in the field of medicine is to provide training to health professionals in order to improve their technical skills where it can eliminate the need of cadavers or mannequins. It also reduces the emotion-based skill variation through the use of real time clinical scenarios.

Haptics generally refers to sensing through touch and manipulating using hands. As vision is the science of seeing and audition is the science of hearing, haptics is the science of touch and manipulation using hands. There is a major difference between perceiving objects through haptics and the other four primary senses. While other four senses can only sense objects and cannot manipulate objects, haptics includes not-only sensing but also manipulation of objects.

Haptics Technology

	6-DOF Haptic device
	1-DOF Haptic device
	Hand Gloves

Medical Haptics

To learn more about haptics, visit the Touchlab website at IIT Madras.