haptic feedback

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

technology that creates the sensation of touch, force, and texture through mechanical stimulation of the user's hands, fingers, or body, providing tactile and kinaesthetic information that supplements or replaces visual and auditory feedback in human-machine interaction; haptic feedback allows users of robots, surgical systems, virtual reality, and touchscreen devices to feel as well as see and hear the objects and environments they are interacting with; actuators used for haptic feedback include vibrotactile motors — the rumble mechanism in game controllers — electrostatic friction actuators that modulate fingertip friction on touchscreens, pneumatically inflatable exoskeletal gloves, and force-feedback devices that resist finger movement to simulate grasping a virtual object; in teleoperation, haptic feedback that transmits the forces experienced by the remote robot's gripper allows operators to delicately manipulate fragile objects without visual contact

Examples

• Haptic feedback in the robotic surgery system allowed the surgeon to feel tissue resistance through the laparoscopic instruments as if touching directly.
• VR training systems with haptic feedback gloves allow surgeons to practice delicate dissection techniques without operating on a patient.