Contactless haptic feedback: state of the art

This paper discusses some of the recent advances in contactless haptic feedback. We mainly discuss two research methods to produce haptic feedback in 3D space: Air-jet and ultrasound. We discuss and compare technical basics of each technology, and then give a literature review of some of the research done that is closely related to this field. This paper also surveys the stages of the design and implementation of airborne ultrasonic tactile displays (AUTD) by researchers in the University of Tokyo, as well as an application of this research done in the University of Bristol. A comparison is presented showing the main advances in the Tokyo research and the technical tests and implementation differences. A discussion follows covering possible improvements and safety issues on the contactless haptic feedback research in general. We show comments and drawbacks of the current technology. For future work in the field of mid-air haptic feedback, we propose a design method to build a "Touchable Avatar", which is a holographic display with contactless haptic feedback properties. Finally, a conclusion is provided including an outlook of the future applications in the field of contactless haptic feedback.