That loving feeling has been found. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University College London have joined hands to demonstrate how the sensation of touch can be transported halfway across the world via high-speed networks.
The feat was accomplished during a demonstration organized for the Internet2 consortium. The sensation of touch was carried from Massachusetts to London by use of a “haptic” or touch signal.
“We have worked for a long time on the haptic interfaces, probably since the late 1980s,” said Mandayam Srinivasan, senior scientist in the department of mechanical engineering at MIT and director of MIT’s Touch Lab. “In 1998, we demonstrated shared haptic environment — that is two users can touch and feel the same object, and feel each other’s forces. Only that time it was between two people in my lab. There was no time delay between them, because the devices were connected to the same computer.”
The demonstration consisted of a researcher at MIT in Boston and one in London joining forces to lift a virtual box displayed on a computer screen.
On each computer screen, each researcher would see a three-dimensional room. In the room would be a black box and two small squares indicating where the users are in the room. Then, each researcher joins forces using a robotic arm to lift the box.
According to MIT, as a user at MIT moves the arm — and therefore the pointer — to touch the box, he can literally feel the box, which has the texture of hard rubber. At the same time, the researcher in London does the same thing. Each attempts to pick up the box applying forces from each side and tries to hold it as long as possible. The entire time, each researcher feels the tug and pull brought about by the other researcher’s manipulation of the box.
The demonstration was accomplished using the Internet2 network. Internet2 is a consortium of more than 200 universities and research labs offering super-fast connections to two fiber-optic backbones and networking protocols ensuring information arrives at its destination without loss or delay. The Internet2 parallels the regular Internet, only without the delays of high usage.
“Touch is the most difficult aspect of virtual environments to stimulate, but we have shown in our previous work with MIT that the effort is worthwhile,” said Mel Slater, a professor of virtual environments at UCL’s computer-science department to MIT. “Now we are extending the benefits of touch feedback to long-distance interaction.”
Srinivasan said the use of such a technology is not yet known, although medical and entertainment were two fields he said would be viable customers. He said the technology must grow before any organization could benefit from it.
“I don’t think the signal is good enough for practical usage,” Srinivasan said. “You can feel each other’s forces, and it seems interesting, but a lot of time-delay problems need to be solved for you to do any complex task. It is probably just like the first telephone call, which was probably noisy and needed to be worked on. Similarly, we need to improve primarily the time delay.”
Normally, the time it takes for a signal to go from the hand to the brain is roughly 30 milliseconds. When Srinivasan performed the same experiment in his laboratory, the time delay was zero because his team used the same computer. However, the researchers at MIT and UCL used two different computers to touch, and the time delay was roughly 150 to 200 milliseconds.
Srinivasan said the technology needed to further the usefulness of this technology is already under development. He said the most likely candidate to use this technology was the medical field, but said the number of applications haptic technology could be utilized in were nearly limitless.
“The most important applications are probably those we haven’t yet talked about,” Srinivasan said.
