In the world of computers and digital devices and controls, haptic feedback information is often missing. To replace the lost sensation of touch, input/output devices can create physical forces, known as haptic feedback, force feedback, touch feedback, or tactile feedback. These forces are created using software elements such as real-time algorithms and authoring tools, and specialized hardware elements, such as motors, sensors, transmissions, and control electronics. Together, these software and hardware elements induce tactile sensations that are context-appropriate, supporting more intuitive operation within the application.

Immersion has developed many haptic mechanisms to convey forces to the user’s hands or body. These include vibro-tactile actuators; direct drive, belt, gear, or cable driven mechanisms; and other proprietary haptic devices that supply textures and vibration, assistance, resistance, and damping forces to the user.

To develop our real-time electronic actuator controllers, it was necessary to address challenges such as size, accuracy, resolution, frequency, latency requirements, power consumption, and cost. Our haptic control solutions include both closed-loop and open-loop control schemes. In closed-loop control, the firmware reads sensors from the input/output devices, and then calculates and applies the haptic output forces in real time based on the sensor data. In open-loop control, a triggering event will activate the firmware to calculate and send the haptic output signal to the actuator in real time.

We have developed many software solutions for various operating systems and computing platforms including PC, Apple, automotive, and mobile handset operating systems. Our inventions also include many generations of authoring tools for creating, visualizing, modifying, archiving, and experiencing haptic feedback.