Wednesday, October 30, 2002

Using High-Speed Links, Researchers Transmit Sensation of Touch Across the Atlantic By FLORENCE OLSEN Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology teamed up with colleagues at University College London on Tuesday to demonstrate how a sensation of touch can be carried across an ocean over high-speed networks. In a demonstration organized for a meeting of the Internet2 consortium, researchers completed what may be the first trans-Atlantic task involving the use of "haptic" -- or touch-signal -- devices attached to a robotic arm and a computer. Two researchers, one at MIT in Boston and the other in London, joined forces to pick up a virtual box displayed on a computer screen. Each was holding a stylus attached to a robotic arm, and by all accounts, each could feel the tug and pull of the other person's grasp. However, the technology today is primitive -- "similar to feeling the world through a stick," said Mandayam A. Srinivasan, director of MIT's Touch Lab, more formally known as the Laboratory for Human and Machine Haptics. Similar trans-Pacific experiments have been conducted by researchers at the University of Tokyo, but many technical problems remain, said Blake Hannaford, a professor of electrical engineering who is director of the biorobotics laboratory at the University of Washington at Seattle. Such experiments may have no immediate practical applications, but MIT researchers said the technology could be used in simulations for teaching surgery remotely, in much the same way that pilots learn to fly airplanes using flight simulators. Companies such as Boeing and Ford are interested in haptic technology. "They want their engineers to be able to work together on a car design from places around the world," by physically interacting with computer models, Mr. Hannaford said. Simulating touch over a network, even a fast one like the Internet2 backbone, has proved difficult, according to Mr. Srinivasan. Currently, a 150-millisecond delay occurs between the time a first person "touches" something, such as a virtual box, and when the second person feels it happening. That delay can make the whole activity feel a bit unnatural, Mr. Srinivasan said. But with more research, he said, scientists can reduce such delays and improve the software algorithms to transmit the sense of touch more precisely. Tuesday's demonstration was not the first of its kind for MIT and University College London. The same researchers first demonstrated haptic touch over a long-distance network in May. Mr. Srinivasan and Mel Slater, professor of virtual environments at the institution, presented their research October 9 at the fifth annual International Workshop on Presence, in Porto, Portugal. In the mid 1990s, MIT researchers invented the type of robotic arm that was used in Tuesday's demonstration. The technology has since been commercialized by SensAble Technologies Inc., a Woburn, Mass., company. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

International team begins new map of human genome, seeking variations within large blocks of DNA California appeals court backs professor in dispute over his demanding approach to teaching President of Quincy U. resigns after trustees question accuracy of his résumé Britain gives college students best return on investment in education, report says Using high-speed links, researchers transmit sensation of touch across the Atlantic Texas sophomore casts a Webwide net in seeking help with college costs