Example of haptic gloves currently being researched and built by Meta, which among other technologies includes pneumatic actuators for force feedback.

Introduction

There are currently 4 main interactions and controllers in virtual and augmented reality systems: VR controllers, haptic gloves, and keyboards (virtual and physical).

Virtual keyboards are slow and input bandwidth is very limited. Controllers work great for games and other interactions but is severely limited in text input. Physical keyboards are faster than virtual ones but require a keyboard to be brought around, adding to clunkiness, and haptic gloves are great for natural interaction but also suffer from limited text inputs and lack the speed of input or button pressing of VR controllers.

Based on this context, we are designing a new set of VR gloves that combine all four of these interactions into one controller, which has high text input bandwidth, can act as VR controller, and in addition as haptic feedback gloves that can feel dozens of different virtual materials.

Projects Goals

<aside> 💡 Design and build a working prototype that operates in VR environments, and publish it either as a paper, patent, or just put it online for recognition. Possible capability for commercialization or licensing. Potentially run user studies, write a paper and submit it for conferences. Potentially pitching the product to companies.

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Current Progress:

• Haptic glove and keyboard input prototype has been completed, and we are actively working on a patent.

Glove prototype with working piezos.