Haptic armband lets you feel the sensation of stroking in VR

Virtual reality has a long way to go before it feels like reality. The visual part is getting more immersive with the new VR headsets, but things like the sense of touch are missing. Heather Culbertson hopes to change that.

At the University of Southern California Viterbi School of Engineering, Culbertson and her team of graduate students are working on a “haptic” armband that gives you a sense of touch. It’s not using an actuator, which gives you a sense of buzzing like in typical video game controllers. Rather, Culbertson has engineered a prototype arm so that it feels like the sensation of a finger moving along your arm. I tried it out on a recent trip to Culbertson’s lab. The current prototype is a sleeve that wraps around your forearm and has a row of wired small speakers on it. It mimics the sensation of a finger moving along your arm.