Essay --

1 INTRODUCTION: Haptics is a recent enhancement to virtual environments allowing users to â€Å"touch† and feel the simulated objects with which they interact. Haptics is the science of touch. The word derives from the Greek haptikos meaning â€Å"being able to come into contact with†. The study of haptics emerged from advances in virtual reality. Virtual reality is a form of human-computer interaction (as opposed to keyboard, mouse and monitor) providing a virtual environment that one can explore through direct interaction with our senses. To be able to interact with an environment, there must be feedback. For example, the user should be able to touch a virtual object and feel a response from it. This type of feedback is called haptic feedback .In human-computer interaction; haptic feedback means both tactile and force feedback. Tactile, or touch feedback is the term applied to sensations felt by the skin. Tactile feedback allows users to feel things such as the texture of surfaces, temperature and vibration. Force feedback reproduces directional forces that can result from solid boundaries, the weight of grasped virtual objects, and mechanical compliance of object and inertia. Tactile feedback, as a component of virtual reality simulations, was pioneered at MIT. The term haptics in its broadest sense relates to the study of touch and the faculty by which external objects or forces are perceived through contact with the body. The word itself derives from the Greek haptikos, â€Å"able to touch†. Haptics can be found in wide range of devices. In the extreme with respect to precision, surgical simulators use haptics to provide realistic forces that emulate the feel of a real medical procedure. In the extreme with respect to the magnitude of t... ...lications Design and implement a few haptic related projects for the benefit of physically challenged people. This proposal develops an approach for haptic exploration of unknown objects by robotic fingers. Because haptic exploration is coupled with manipulation and exploration using a sequence of phases is presented. With specialized fingers and sensors and appropriate planning and control robots can also be enabled to explore the worlds through touch. Haptic exploration has applications in many areas including planetary exploration, undersea salvage, operations in remote and hazardous conditions. Application of the human haptic interaction, multi sensory perception, action and multimodal feedback can be applied in the fields of education, rehabilitation, medicine, computer aided design, skill training, computer games, driver controls, simulation and visualization.