Use VR to simulate drinking water, smoking, brushing teeth?
These were all achieved by researchers at CMU.
"The mouth is second only to the fingertips in terms of tactile sensitivity, which provides an opportunity to create very fine tactile effects." Recently, at the Human Machine Interface (ACM CHI) conference, Carnegie May Researchers at the Human-Computer Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) have demonstrated a VR device that can generate lip-tooth haptics without touching the lips.
The device consists of a thin, compact beamforming array of ultrasonic transducers that can be mounted on the bottom of a virtual reality headset.
Ultrasonic transducers focus sound energy on the wearer's mouth, and they trigger different types of effects, such as glides, dot pulses, or continuous vibrations.
Users can feel these ultrasonic effects on their lips, tongue or teeth.
These oral haptics could lead to new and interesting virtual reality experiences, the researchers say, such as being used to simulate virtual liquids such as water or coffee on the lips of a VR user, or even the sensation of "puffing" a virtual cigarette.
Beyond the recreational value, it has also been envisioned that such apps could have medical benefits, such as virtual cessation therapy that could help people quit smoking.
Due to the nature of the study, the scientists actually avoided mentioning any possibility of kissing, although it is technically very relevant.
Mouth haptic innovations can be used to simulate the sensation of headwind or rain beating on the face in virtual reality, the team said, a haptic simulation that could radically improve immersion in VR environments.
In the demo, the researchers asked the experiencer to "enter" a dark forest and experience the spider "jumping" to the lips (simulation of random pulses).
After the user shoots the spider with the flare gun, the user experiences a splash of slime (simulated by a random pulse on the mouth at a higher frequency).
"Importantly, all components are integrated into the headset, meaning the user does not need to wear additional accessories or place any external infrastructure in the room," the researchers wrote. This is an important advance, and the modified The headset no longer requires the device to be placed near the user's mouth as before.
The 64 40kHz ultrasonic sensor arrays installed at the bottom of the VR headset are 17.9x10.6x1.5cm in size and 107g in weight, and the presence is much lower than the previous method.
A study of participants found that oral touch greatly increased immersion and provided a better sense of presence for most.
However, some users reported that using ultrasonic waves to simulate water is cognitively inconsistent.
"While the haptic effects are fun and well positioned, the feel itself doesn't necessarily meet my expectations," the user said.
In the paper, the researchers acknowledge that their system is fundamentally limited because vibration alone is not enough to simulate the sensation of a mouth.
Nonetheless, the participants largely preferred to have mouth haptics rather than none at all.
Currently, the team is working to make the design smaller and lighter.
Given that more work needs to be done, it may take a while for the technology to hit the market.