New Approaches to Haptics for Teleoperation and Virtual Reality

The IEEE Control Systems Society is an international scientific, engineering, and professional organization that was founded in 1954 and is dedicated to the advancement of research, development, and practice in automation and control systems. The society and its members are involved in a number of activities, including publishing journals and a magazine, holding a number of conferences, and sponsoring committees in various areas of technical specialization.The CSS Chapter, Santa Clara Valley, serves the local members and community in Silicon Valley. This includes organizing a regular speaker series in the area of control systems, where experts present their work in R&D and industrial applications.

IEEE Control Systems Society, SCV

<P>The IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS), Silicon Valley, is proud to present</P>
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<H3><SPAN><SPAN>Title:   New Approaches to Haptics for Teleoperation and Virtual Reality<BR></SPAN></SPAN></H3>
<H3><SPAN>Speaker:  Samuel B. Schorr, Stanford University<BR></SPAN></H3>
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<P><SPAN><STRONG>Co-sponsors</STRONG>: IEEE Robotics &amp; Automation Society, Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society<BR></SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN><SPAN>Date</SPAN>: Wednesday, April 27, 2016<BR><SPAN>Time</SPAN>: 6:30pm Networking, 7:00pm Presentation<BR><SPAN>Location</SPAN>: Qualcomm, Inc., Building B – Café, 3165 Kifer Road, Santa Clara, CA 95051</SPAN></P>
<P><SPAN><SPAN>Cost</SPAN>: FREE</SPAN></P>
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<H3><SPAN><SPAN>Abstract</SPAN><SPAN>:</SPAN></SPAN></H3>
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<P>The sense of touch is essential for exploring the world around us.  When manipulating or grasping physical objects, we use both kinesthetic and tactile haptic information to inform our interaction with the environment.  Friction and normal force between the finger skin and the surface of objects results in skin deformation related to the forces of interaction. When teleoperating a remote device, as in robot-assisted minimally invasive surgery, this haptic information may be limited or lost due to stability issues associated with time delay or inaccuracies in robot modeling and force estimation.  The lack of force and tactile feedback makes it difficult to perform delicate teleoperated tasks such as suturing or tissue manipulation. In this talk, I will present research on the use of tactile haptic devices we are developing that are capable of emulating the skin deformation present during natural interactions with the physical environment. These devices are used to recover the sensation of force in teleoperation, without any of the risk associated with feedback-induced instability.  A series of experiments have shown that tactile skin deformation haptic devices can be practically used to improve operator performance of force-sensitive teleoperated tasks.  These concepts can be extrapolated to other scenarios such as virtual reality and simulation training, where we seek to increase immersion by rendering the forces of interaction between the user and a virtual environment. We are currently investigating small, wearable skin deformation devices that are not constrained to the workspace of a table-top manipulator and can be integrated with virtual reality displays to improve manipulation task performance.</P>
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<H3><SPAN><SPAN>Speaker Biography</SPAN>:</SPAN></H3>
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<P>Samuel B. Schorr received the B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, Stanford, CA. He is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in the Collaborative Haptics and Robotics in Medicine Lab (CHARM, www.charm.stanford.edu) within the department of mechanical engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA. His research interests include haptics, tactile sensing and feedback, teleoperation, and medical robotics. He is supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship.</P>
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