The term haptics, also known as haptic sensing, describes the capacity to recognize and understand objects through touch. Instead of passively detecting vibration or force on the skin, this is active touch, involving the investigation of an object with the hand. Our understanding of haptics is essential for the creation of new technology, such as tactile flat-screen displays and prosthetic hands. Lynette Jones provides a clear explanation of haptics, or active touch sensing, and its uses in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series volume.
According to Jones, haptics entails combining sensory data from touch and kinesthesia, or data from sensors in the skin as well as sensors in muscles, tendons, and joints. Technology’s difficulty is simulating some of the feelings connected to actual interactions with the environment in a virtual setting.
Jones outlines the components of the tactile system, including the skin’s receptors and the skin itself, as well as how information is processed at this point of contact with the outside world. She discusses tactile compensation for other sensory impairments, surface haptics, which generate virtual haptic effects on physical surfaces like touch screens, and the development of robotic and prosthetic hands that mimic the characteristics of human hands. Haptic illusions are distorted perceptions of objects and the body itself. Tactile displays range from braille to robotic systems.
