Ultraleap STRATOS

Haptic Technology in Mid-Air

What is Ultraleap's STRATOS?

Ultraleap, the recently renamed company that combines both Ultrahaptics and Leap Motion, has created a technology that sends ultrasound vibrations through the air to create the sensation of feeling objects that aren't there. It does not require the use of controllers or gloves, simply the intuitiveness of your own hands.

Why is this important to VR/AR technology?

The Global Haptics Technology Market Analysis estimates that the haptic technology industry - that is, technologies like virtual reality, augmented reality, and other technologies relating to the senses - will grow by 18.5% from 2018 to 2026. (BusinessWire, 2019)

Without the use of controllers, interacting with augmented reality technology becomes more realistic, accurate, and intuitive.

Reactions to Ultraleap's Technology

Ultrahaptic STRATOS Discussion

This year has been an exciting year for the augmented reality and virtual reality. Back in September 2019, two preexisting companies, Ultrahaptics and Leap Motion, combined to create UltraLeap. This merger combines the advance hand motion tracking created by Leap Motion with the mid-air haptic feedback technology created by Ultrahaptics (Ultraleap). These are two complementary technologies that make the merging of these two technologies a no-brainer. UltraLeap’s technology brings haptic feedback to any augmented, virtual, or mixed reality interaction! In 2018, Ultrahaptics won Innovative VR Company of the Year at the VR awards. (AIXR, 2019).

People that have tried the technology can reach out and sense something out in front of them. The addition of Leap Motion’s hand tracking makes the technology more capable of sensing your movements and allows you to use your hand like a controller. Ultrahaptic’s technology gives haptic feedback in response to your hand’s movements. Imagine seeing a button in virtual reality and then feeling the response on your fingers to the button press. Imagine seeing a dial in augmented reality and feeling it move when you move it back and forth.

The UltraHaptic STRATOS^TM has a 256 array of transducers, or sensors, that detect your hand’s presence. The machine then uses “ultrasonic speakers [to] project shapes and textures directly onto a user’s hands”.

Ultrahaptics STRATOS Explore

Ultrahaptics STRATOS Inspire

Ultrahaptics History

Ultrahaptic’s started out as a PhD student’s research in haptic technology. Tom Carter, Ultrahaptic’s CTO, started his company during his research, and later left to help grow the company. They first created a technology called Amplitude Modulation. It would turn ultrasound waves on and off, creating distinct points of vibration. Your hand would be able to register this, but the shapes created by these points have no smooth lines or curves. They are currently working on a technology called Spatiotemporal Modulation which moves these points back and forth. Our hands can sense this change in our skin, creating shapes that do have smooth lines and curves (Ultrahaptics).

Applications of the Technology

Ultrahaptic’s STRATOS currently has applications in mixed reality and virtual reality attractions. For example, STRATOS is featured inside of the Lionsgate Entertainment World theme park in in Hangqin, China. It’s part of an attraction called The Twilight Saga: Midnight Ride which combines virtual reality headsets, motorbikes which move around, 3D sound without the use of headphones, and Ultrahaptic’s technology (Ultraleap). At a theme park, attractions need to be able to handle the large amounts of visitors who want to experience their attractions. In this case, teaching users how to interact with controllers adds to the amount of time spent at the attraction, which keeps lines long. A controllers-free ride helps with this issue, and it also adds the fun sensation of being able to interact with and feel virtual objects throughout the ride.

This technology was also featured in a mixed reality showcase at the Augmented World Expo as well as E3 this year. Visitors would enter a room called the Unreal Garden and encounter four pillars that had the Ultrahaptic’s STRATOS device installed combined with Leap Motion’s hand tracking. Through augmented reality headsets, visitors could see and feel magical floating orbs. Ultraleap’s website says, “you can conjure energy, cast spells, create rainbows at your fingertips, engage with other players, learn from the forest animals and leave inspired. The creators’ vision was to use interactive technologies to bring people together, inspire collaboration, connection and community, and empower the creative within all of us” (Ultraleap).

While the examples I mentioned are focused on the potential of Ultrahaptic's STRATOS technology being used in entertainment, I can imagine more practical applications of the technology. In hospital rooms, for example, doctors and nurses are constantly changing out their latex gloves to prevent the spread of bacteria. The fewer things that they have to touch, the more the hospital can curb the spread of bacteria. With hand tracking and haptic feedback, I can imagine a hospital that implements this technology to open and close doors, turn on lights, and interact with various kinds of machinery without actually having to touch anything.

Pros and Cons

A research study done studied the usefulness and accuracy of haptic feedback technology while driving. They found that for simple button interactions, the touchscreen was the preferred method and had a faster reponse than the haptic technology. However, when interacting with sliders with the Ultrahaptic's STRATOS technology, the haptic technology was preferred.

Results show that combining gestures with mid-air haptic feedback was particularly promising, reducing the number of long glances and mean off-road glance time associated with the in-vehicle tasks. For slider-bar tasks in particular, gestures-with-haptics was also associated with the shortest interaction times, highest number of correct responses and least ‘overshoots’, and was favoured by participants. In contrast, for button-selection tasks, the touchscreen was most popular, enabling the highest accuracy and quickest responses, particularly when combined with haptic feedback to guide interactions, although this also increased visual demand. The study shows clear potential for gestures with mid-air ultrasonic haptic feedback in the automotive domain. (Harrington, et al, 2018)

This study shows that even though this mid-air haptic feedback technology is very promising, it is also very new. It's possible that the software inside of the STRATOS is still relatively new and not as intuitive in its use, but it's also possible that the quick and easy interaction of a touch screen is still the most intuitive way to interact with buttons and other kinds of information.

I hope this technology scales up its production because I genuinely think it can enhance the way that we interact with computers in our daily life. Imagine scrolling up and down not with a touchpad, but with hand gestures. It can also have unique applications in virtual reality videogames that can be played in the comfort of your own home.

Citations

Blenkinsopp, Robert. AIXR. (2019). Creating Haptic Feedback in VR – The Technology behind Ultrahaptics.

BusinessWire. (Nov. 9, 2019). Global Haptics Technology Market Analysis, 2018 & Forecasts 2019-2026 - ResearchAndMarkets.com.

Harrington, Kyle & Large, David & Burnett, Gary & Georgiou, Orestis. (2018). Exploring the Use of Mid-Air Ultrasonic Feedback to Enhance Automotive User Interfaces. 10.1145/3239060.3239089.

Ultrahaptics. Haptic technology | Rendering 3D shapes in mid-air.

Ultraleap. Theme parks: Ride to the future with Twilight & DreamCraft.

Ultraleap. Ultraleap launches, ready to redefine interaction.

Ultraleap. The Unreal Garden | Multiplayer mixed reality.

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