Quentin Parent is a sales engineer at Haption, and he talks about some of their force-feedback haptic devices that are used in different industry applications. These are haptic feedback systems are used to train astronauts, for nuclear training, as well as with other medical training applications. Some of these devices cost nearly $100k, and so they’re not really aiming for the consumer market. But it’s interesting to hear about how precisely these Haption devices can simulate rigid body interactions for industrial applications.
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Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.412] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast.
[00:00:11.985] Quentin Parent: My name is Quentin and I work for Haption for two months now. Haption is a French company. We are a spin-off from the CEA which is the French Atomic Nuclear Agency. This arm was first released in 2004 and it has evolved a lot since. Today it is used half by the industrial applications such as aerospace, automotive or nuclear and the other half would be research for either medical applications or any research topics that could include haptics in their environments.
[00:00:42.192] Kent Bye: I see. And so, yeah, it seems like in the realm of haptics that there's very specific devices to do specific things. And this looks like some sort of, like, generalized solution that's being able to use in a lot of different contexts. But I'm just curious about some of the very specific ones that you see people using this type of system in and what type of VR experiences and what type of actually haptic feedback it's able to provide.
[00:01:05.455] Quentin Parent: So this device here is really used in, for example, nuclear applications. You use the arm in the smaller versions, which offer you a stronger couple. So you are controlling the slave arm in the heart cell, for instance, and you have two arms that allows you to move two different robots in the heart cell. So you can make any radioactive applications and radioactive operations without making people's safety in danger.
[00:01:30.132] Kent Bye: And so what type of actual force feedback or what are the different dimensions that this is able to actually emulate in order to give that haptic feedback?
[00:01:39.195] Quentin Parent: So we have a continuous force, we can apply up to 10 N which is about 1 kg or we can apply a peak force of 35 N. If you want a shorter version of the Virtuos here, you can apply stronger forces. For example, if the nuclear warrants, we can go up to 70 N on a peak force. We also released last year a smaller version which is called the Virtuos 6D Desktop. And this one has a smaller workspace, so it's about 40 centimeters on the width. And I don't know exactly the specifics about the first couple, but big one here, for instance, comparing to its brother, it can go up to 1.3 meters.
[00:02:16.617] Kent Bye: And so what are some of the specific tasks that someone may be doing in virtual reality where they need to actually get this feedback? Like, are they decommissioning something? Or maybe kind of describe to me what they're physically doing within a VR space.
[00:02:29.995] Quentin Parent: So on the research base it can be really different because every topic is different and you know in a searcher's mind you have many ideas that come together. So in the industry it's simpler to explain. For example you can have a digital mock-up that you have not built the prototypes yet and you want to make sure that everything you designed will fit all together. So you just go into your virtual room which can be a cave or just a screen and you load everything and you want to make sure that this piece will fit into the other one. So you just load and you start and you control one piece with the haptic device and each time it gets into a collision with another piece, you will feel the touch. Once you decided what would be the best trajectory for your element to follow, you can apply a guidance and you can make an operator come and learn the task to make sure what you will do later on will be the good one. Once all this is done you can load the mannequin into the simulation to make sure that the mannequin movements will be human movements. I mean they don't have an elbow behind the head or something like this.
[00:03:29.188] Kent Bye: Are these mostly used in training simulations or what other type of things are they actually using for? Is it mostly training?
[00:03:36.575] Quentin Parent: It can be training. We've not defined what the major application is because they can switch to another one, but assembly tasks, maintenance tasks, training of course, ergonomic studies, ergonomic assessments, and then in the research field, in the medical for example, you can use it for a rehabilitation process, which means you can attach the wrist of the patient or even his whole arm, and you can make sure he's following the movements with the guidance.
[00:04:03.216] Kent Bye: I see. And so it sounds like you're feeding the input to this back into the real time interactive virtual reality program as well. And so are you creating the VR experience in combination with this? Does it have like an SDK? Or I guess I'm wondering how you kind of interact with the Haption device into the actual VR. Yeah.
[00:04:22.623] Quentin Parent: So you can work straight away with our device into Unity 3D through Middle VR. You can also work with WorldVis, VisArt. On the engineering side we can work straight into Catia V5, Delmia V5 and V6 now. We are working on integration with Siemens. and you can work with easy ICI do and then we deliver a basic API that allows you to make your interaction if you have a in-house software or other software we don't support yet you can make sure the haptic device will fit in.
[00:04:54.321] Kent Bye: Great, and what type of industry verticals are customers for this device?
[00:04:58.927] Quentin Parent: Well, we work with Airbus, PSA in France, we also work with Jaguar, we are working with many different companies, Arriva for instance, and many different universities in Europe and worldwide.
[00:05:10.581] Kent Bye: And what's the sort of price range for these types of devices?
[00:05:14.105] Quentin Parent: So the smaller version comes about from 18, 500,000 euros. It's big brother with the six Dove versions, desktop one is 30,000 euros, and the big one you see here exposed is 85,000 euros.
[00:05:27.115] Kent Bye: Okay. What's next with, you know, what to look forward to in terms of these devices? Obviously, the price range is sort of in the realm of industry, but I'm just curious if, you know, there might be a more consumer version or what sort of the future of some of your products and what you are trying to improve?
[00:05:42.367] Quentin Parent: Well, of course, some people have tried to get into the consumer market, but it's really hard because you need to make people to add up to the devices and you make sure you have to do your sales. We are not targeting this, but maybe other competitors are. I think today what people are looking for is the hand perception by itself, which means having gloves and have this force feedback straight onto the every fingers. That's where we can try to head to today.
[00:06:07.725] Kent Bye: Okay, great. Well, thank you.
[00:06:09.726] Quentin Parent: You're welcome. Thank you.
[00:06:11.755] Kent Bye: And thank you for listening! If you'd like to support the Voices of VR podcast, then please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com slash voicesofvr.
