The Elitac Wearables ScienceSuit is a set of hardware, software & textile components that lets researchers and product developers test haptic feedback applications quickly and cost-efficiently. It has been used for a wide range of applications since its introduction.
Of course, we’ve long been convinced of the benefits of haptic feedback, ranging from sensory replacement and reducing sensory overload to the intuitive communication of a variety of information.
We recently caught up with some of our ScienceSuit users and were truly inspired to learn about all the valuable applications they have found for haptic feedback. Therefore, a big shout out to some of our customers:
We recently caught up with the users of our #ScienceSuit haptic feedback R&D hardware and were truly inspired to learn about all the valuable uses they have found for it. Therefore, a big shout out to a few of our amazing customers!
At the Sint Maartenskliniek, they’re researching wearable #exoskeletons that can augment or restore human motor functions. They’re using the ScienceSuit to test the added value of haptic feedback for exoskeleton users with spinal cord injuries. In this set-up, pressure sensors in the users’ shoes interact with the ScienceSuit, which then informs the user about how her/his body is moving through vibrations on the chest.
Read more about this inspiring project here: https://www.wearablerobotics.nl.
With the help of the ScienceSuit, the EXIST Research Transfer Project Surgical Audio Guidance (SURAG) at the Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg is looking to solve one of the drawbacks of laparoscopic surgery.
In contrast to traditional open surgery, the procedure is conducted using long instruments that are inserted through tiny keyholes into the patients’ body. Due to this, the surgeons‘ haptic information is reduced by 30-100% compared to open surgery. This can limit the identification of anatomic structures, cause longer procedure times, and increases the patients’ risk of injury.
However, the SURAG-team is researching and developing a clever solution to this problem with the “Surgical Audio Guidance”-project: Using audio sensors and advanced signal processing in combination with real-time (haptic) feedback to provide surgeons with supplementary sensory information relevant for placement and navigation of the medical instruments. In practice, each type of tissue surface should give a different sound to the surgeons, which would help them to orientate inside the patients’ body.
Read more about this innovative project here: www.surag-medical.de.
Researchers at the University of Twente and the Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour used the ScienceSuit to examine the possibility of communicating facial expressions to visually impaired people via haptic feedback.
A wearable webcam classified facial expressions into one of the six basic emotions (anger, disgust, joy, fear, surprise, sadness). These were then conveyed to the ScienceSuit, which communicated the emotions to the user through vibrations around the waist.
Researchers from the Ambient Intelligence Research Group at the Saxion University of Applied Sciences developed a soft exoskeleton in the XoSoft project to assist people with mobility impairments, and used the ScienceSuit to provide haptic balance feedback to the exoskeleton users.
Read more about this inspiring project here: https://www.xosoft.eu.
