Consumer/Home/Recreation
Force Feedback Joystick
Any computer game joystick jockey will tell you: It's all in the touch.
But a new technology called Force Feedback is adding vivid physical "feel"
sensations to computer entertainment systems.
"Get a grip" takes on added dimension in the fast-paced, virtual
world of computer gaming. Experience the recoil from shooting a gun in
virtual reality. Perceive the jarring bounce, bump, and vibration while
driving over simulated road terrain. Feel the reaction of your computerized
dragster as it slams into the race track wall.
I-FORCE™ is a computer peripheral from Immersion Corporation of
San Jose, California. This Silicon Valley -situated high-technology firm
has taken interaction to a new dimension--one that literally comes alive
in your hands.
I-FORCE was derived from virtual environment and human factors research
and done at the Advanced Displays and Spatial Perception Laboratory at
Ames Research Center, in collaboration with Stanford University's Center
for Design Research.
Entrepreneur Louis Rosenberg, a former Stanford researcher, now president
of Immersion Corporation, credits much of the knowledge acquired to move
Force Feedback into the commercial world to the NASA-university joint research
efforts. Rosenberg collaborated with Dr. Bernard Adelstein at Ames on studies
of perception in virtual reality. Immersion Corporation adapted the basic
qualities of Force Feedback: the crispness of initial contact, the hardness
of surface rigidity, and the cleanness of final release, all in a virtual
environment.
| An early Force Feedback prototype was
derived from work done at NASA's Advanced Displays and Spatial Perception
Laboratory. |
"It took us three years and much innovation, but Immersion can
now produce consumer Force Feedback products," Rosenberg says. The
result was an inexpensive way to incorporate motors and a sophisticated
microprocessor into joysticks and other game controllers. These devices
can emulate the feel of a car on the skid, a crashing plane, the bounce
of a ball, compressed springs, or other physical phenomenon.
Immersion anticipates that the technology has the potential to increase
the realism of the game environment and provide a more engaging and entertaining
experience. By adding physical sensations to the toolbox of perceptual
effects that game developers have at their disposal, Immersion contends
that new life can be breathed into common video game paradigms. In essence,
may the force be with you.
"Force Feedback will make the abstract world of software tangible,
physical, and personal. It's not just visual any more!" exclaims promotional
material from the company.
| Immersion Corporation has commercialized
Force Feedback technology and added the sensation of feel to joysticks
used in computer simulation games. NASA's work in advanced display technologies
played a centerpiece in the concept. |
To run I-FORCE, Immersion developed a Force Feedback software protocol
known as the I-FORCE API. The I -FORCE hardware and electronics architecture
has been licensed to numerous manufacturers of computing peripherals. The
first products incorporating the I-FORCE technology appeared in 1996. For
example, CH-Products of Vista, California embodied the I-FORCE technology
into their popular line of FlightStick and CombatStick controllers. Many
more products from various vendors using I-Force are to follow as major
hardware manufacturers have endorsed the Force Feedback concept.
Immersion's Rosenberg predicts that Force Feedback may go far beyond
joysticks, such as a tool for handicapped people to escort unsteady hands
or literally pushing open doors during a cyber-tour of a house for sale.
Already, Immersion offers the Virtual Laparoscopic Interface™ that
can hone the skills of a surgeon through realistic surgical simulations.
In a similar fashion, the delicate nature of catheter-based procedures
are also being targeted as an emerging simulation.
™ I-FORCE and Virtual Laparoscopic Interface are trademarks of
Immersion Corporation.
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