Virtual reality systems are becoming increasingly popular, not only as entertainment tools, but for innovating several industrial and social applications, such as training, rehabilitation and guidance.
Beyond immersion and realism, haptic devices can use the sense of touch to convey augmented information to the user (such as, in a limited fashion, vibrotactile cues of a smartphone do). Wearable actuators applying stretch to the skin appears the most suitable to convey more complex information such as directions and rotations.
In project SUN, Sant’Anna is developing new haptic devices wearable at the limbs that are wearable, lightweight, compact, and able to convey directional information to the user through the use of miniaturized actuators and soft materials. In the project research activity is aimed to investigate how this haptic feedback can be used to provide orientation information to patients during rehabilitation exercises, helping the physiotherapist in providing useful hints when using particularly complex setups such as VR/XR ones.