Is Ultrasound the game controller of the future?

Using ultrasound to feel virtual objects

What is the next evolution in game controllers? How about Ultrasound, which lets you FEEL virtual objects.

A new system developed by a team in Tokyo lead by Professor Takayuki Iwamoto harnesses the power of ultrasonic waves in order to create touchable virtual objects out of thin air. Drawn from the burgeoning field of haptics (the study of integrating computing power with our senses of touch) the ultrasound system uses focused sound waves to create mid-air shapes that a user can actually feel with their bare hands, no other device is necessary! The sound is a pressure wave and is inaudible. And as sound waves from each of the transducers interfere, it creates a focal point that is perceived as a solid object. The device also includes a camera to track the position of the user’s hand and shifts the output from the transducers to move the focus around with the hand. The result is a feeling of tracing the edge or surface of the virtual object.

So far though, the system provides a small force only in the vertical dimension, but the team is improving the geometry of the array and the amount of power it can produce so that future devices will provide a stiffer feel and more contoured objects.

“You can feel it with both hands, rather than having just a single point of contact, and multiple people can use it at the same time,” he told the BBC News. “The kinds of things we use aren’t connected through mechanical arms or you’re wearing some kind of exoskeleton. It’s great to have something that you can just walk up and use and not need any other kind of hardware you have to hold or wear.”

As should be obvious to any gamer, this could have huge implications for the gaming industry, as current controllers for the 360, PS3 and Wii are still limited in their ability to make the player “feel” the action, using old “rumbling” technology, which really just vibrates the controllers.

And the possibility of using this technology in video games isn’t all that far-fetched, especially when you consider that the development team of the ultrasound device has already gotten “several proposals from industrial companies”. Hmm, wonder which companies.