There's something cool I learned about the SMoRG Lab today:
haptics!
Haptics is the field which studies how our sensors in the
skin are used to derive information and how this information is used to carry
out specific functions.
A common usage of haptics can be seen in the technology we
know and love. For example, haptics is used in the common video game
controller; we can feel the racing of a heart, the recoil of a gun, or the
smack of a tennis racket hitting a ball. It is also used in our touchscreen
phones through the vibrations and clicks our devices make when we scroll down a
page or press a virtual key. Without haptics, many users would have no sense of
whether or not a task has been executed successfully-- the vibrations and
resistance we feel in our devices reassures us of this.
At the SMoRG lab, they have incorporated the study of
haptics with that of violin bowing. Information concerning the execution of the
goal (playing the violin) is confirmed by the auditory feedback (the sound of
the violin), while the information regarding the friction between the bow and
the violin strings are assured by the tactile feedback.
All of the studies regarding this manipulation of the bow is
incorporated into SMoRG's research on haptics in neuroprosthetics (the bow is
almost like and extension of the arm). Through this synthesis of data,
SMoRG hopes to combine their knowledge of normal sensation and electrotactile
stimulation to create a neuro-electronic hybrid system which can be manipulated
directly through brain signals.
I actually went to a conference last Friday with the people who work in the lab I work in. Everything was based on motor movement and the primary motor cortex. One of the speakers there used haptic feedback to make people's arm movements more precise. She attached motors to subjects' arms and made them follow a pattern for their arm to move in. If the forearm was extended too much, a motor on the forearm would use haptic feedback to tell the person to flex the forearm to stay consistent with the arm pattern. She used Kinect to form the arm patterns and to measure the amount of human error from the pattern. The speaker was from UPenn.
ReplyDeleteJust thought that was relevant to this :) I actually have enjoyed reading your blog so far!