Proposal for Establishing a New Task Force on Haptics Presented by Hong Z. Tan 0. Preface In October 2006, a proposal for a new Technical Committee on Haptics (TCH) will be presented at the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society’s AdCom meeting during IROS 2006, and is expected to be approved. The proposal presented here is aimed towards a TCH in the IEEE Computer Society. The details of operating the TCH under the joint sponsorship of CS and RAS are to be worked out in the future. 1. Motivation Since the first International Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems (Haptics Symposium) in 1992, the international haptics research community has enjoyed a healthy and steady growth. There are now three major international conferences dedicated to haptics research: Haptics Symposium, EuroHaptics, and World Haptics Conference, as well as many other regularly-held small-scale meetings. The number of presentations has grown from 9 papers presented at the first Haptics Symposium in 1992 to 69 oral presentations, 143 posters and 35 hands-on demonstrations with a total attendance of 378 people at the First World Haptics Conference in 2005. In the meanwhile, the number of publications worldwide that mention “haptics” in the title has grown from less than a 100 in 1992 to over 1,600 in 2005. The time is ripe for a Task Force on Haptics to bring together the international haptics research community from a diverse array of disciplines to debate challenges and opportunities in haptics research, and to make concerted efforts towards experimental, theoretical, and algorithmic breakthroughs in this growing field. Proposed Scope: Haptics research has permeated many disciplines and application areas. Earliest efforts focused on sensory substitution: stimulating the sense of touch to convey imagery or speech for individuals with visual and/or auditory impairments. With the advent of force-feedback devices, there have been renewed interests in using haptic interfaces in teleoperator systems and virtual environments. The successful deployment of haptic interfaces requires continuing advances in hardware design, control, software algorithms, as well as our understanding of the human somatosensory system. Priority areas include, but are by no means limited to: 1) Devices & technology 2) Tactile display and tactile sensing 3) Haptic rendering 4) Perception & psychophysics 5) Neuroscience 6) Haptic cognition 7) Multimodal perception 8) Sensory guided motor control 9) Haptic Communication 10) Applications in entertainment, medicine, rehabilitation, education, data perceptualization, art, rapid prototyping, remote collaboration, etc. 2. Names of individuals involved in the Task Force Executive Committee (confirmed) CHAIR: Hong Z. Tan (Purdue University, USA) CO-CHAIR: Matthias Harders (ETH Zurich, Switzerland) CO-CHAIR: Hiroyuki Kajimoto (University of Electro-Communications, Japan) SENIOR ADVISORS: Antonio Bicchi (University of Pisa, Italy) Martin Buss (Technical University of Munich, Germany) J. Edward Colgate (Northwestern University, USA) Blake Hannaford (University of Washington, USA) William Harwin (University of Reading, UK) Robert D. Howe (Harvard University, USA) Hiroo Iwata (University of Tsukuba, Japan) Prof. Roland Johansson (Umea University, Sweden) Roberta L. Klatzky (Carnegie Mellon, USA) Susan J. Lederman (Queen’s University, Canada) Ming Lin (University of North Carolina, USA) Dinesh K. Pai (Rutgers University, University of British Columbia) Makoto Sato (Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan) Mandayam A. Srinivasan (MIT, USA) APPOINTED OFFICERS: Vice Chair for Conference: Gunter Niemeyer (Stanford University, USA) Vice Chair for Finance: Allison Okamura (Johns Hopkins University, USA) Vice Chair for Information Dissemination: Antonio Frisoli (Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Italy) Vice Chair for Publication: Karon MacLean (University of British Columbia, Canada) Vice Chair for Special issues on haptics: Domenico Prattichizzo (University of Siena, Italy) Secretary: Anatole Lecuyer (INRIA, France) 3. Individuals who will be interested in working in the TF (confirmed) Listed below are a list of people who agreed to have their name listed as Founding Members of the (eventual) technical committee on Haptics. They include past organizers of the major haptics conferences, as well as distinguished haptics researchers. Dr. Bernard D. Adelstein Human Systems Integration Division NASA Ames Research Center Prof. Massimo Bergamasco PERCRO Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna Pisa, Italy Prof. Stephen Brewster Department of Computing Science University of Glasgow Dr. Roger W. Cholewiak The Cutaneous Communication Laboratory at Princeton University The Tactile Research Laboratory at the Naval Aerospace Medical Research Lab Prof. James C. Craig Psychological and Brain Sciences Indiana University Prof. Mark Cutkosky Department of Mechanical Engineering Stanford University Dr. Marc O. Ernst Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics Germnay Prof. Vincent Hayward Center for Intelligent Machines McGill University Prof. Gerd Hirzinger Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics DLR (German Aerospace Center) Prof. John Hollerbach School of Computing University of Utah Prof. Ralph Hollis The Robotics Institute and Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Carnegie Mellon University Prof. Steven Hsiao Krieger Mind/Brain Institute and Depts. of Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering The Johns Hopkins University Dr. Lynette Jones Department of Mechanical Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology Prof. Oussama Khatib Department of Computer Science Stanford University Prof. Abderrahmane Kheddar Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique CNRS, France Dr. Fiona Newell School of Psychology and Institute of Neuroscience Trinity College Dublin Dr. Sile O'Modhrain Sonic Arts Research Centre Queens University Belfast Prof. Tim Salcudean Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering The University of British Columbia Prof. Kenneth Salisbury Depts of Computer Science and Surgery Stanford University Ann Marie Shillito Research Fellow in Design and Applied Arts Edinburgh College of Art Prof. Charles Spence Head of the Crossmodal Research Laboratory Department of Experimental Psychology Oxford University Prof. Susumu Tachi The University of Tokyo Japan Prof. Janet Weisenberger Dept of Speech and Hearing Science Ohio State University Prof. Alan Wing School of Psychology University of Birmingham Dr. Mark Wright School of Informatics University of Edinburgh Prof. Tsuneo Yoshikawa Ritsumeikan University Japan 4. Method for attracting new members Podium announcements will be made at Haptics Symposium, EuroHaptics, and the World Haptics Conferences. A membership table will be set up at Poster/Demo sessions during the major haptics conference where new members can sign up via the TC webpage. Starting with World Haptics Conference in March 2007, a one-page announcement will be included in the conference proceedings that includes information on how to join the TC on haptics. 5. Plans which the TF hopes to accomplish over the next two+ years One-Year-Goal: to establish a new TC on Haptics under IEEE Computer Society. Two-Year-Goal: to provide a focal point for and to coordinate the activities of the international haptics research community, both in academia and in industry. Four-Year-Goal: to advance the field of haptics by identifying and coordinating activities along focused directions; to create a Transactions-quality journal on haptics; and to further broaden membership by seeking joint-sponsorship from other IEEE societies and possibly organizations outside IEEE. 6. The way to benefit CS members While the theme of the proposed TC is on touch, there is synergistic relationship to many existing TCs in the IEEE Computer Society (Visualization and Graphics) and in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (e.g., Humanoid Robotics, Surgical Robotics). The VGTC has been sponsoring the Haptics Symposium which has been held in conjunction with IEEE VR Conference since 2002. The IEEE Press has been publishing the proceedings of the Haptics Symposium since 2002 as well as the World Haptics Conferences in 2005 and 2007. It is expected that the new TCH will have a positive impact to CS members by contributing to research on scientific data perceptualization (visualization + haptic/audio displays) and on virtual environments. 7. The way to become a “major player” in the particular area of concentration In many ways, this goal has already been accomplished. The First World Haptics Conference in 2005 built on the success of the North-American Haptics Symposium and the European EuroHaptics, and brought together nearly 400 haptics researchers worldwide to debate and discuss state-of-the-art in haptics research. The major haptics companies (SensAble Technologies, ForceDimension, Immersion, MOOG FCS, to name just a few) regularly send representatives to attend the haptics conferences, provide financial support, and sponsor conference awards. A new initiative is currently underway to start a new IEEE Transactions on Haptics with joint sponsorship of RAS and CS. The goal of this TF is to establish a new TC on haptics that will become an interdisciplinary home for the international haptics research community. 8. Budget: Details for two years - General funds for the activities of the TC boards (travel, communication, etc.) - Funds for creating a new Transaction and/or on-line magazine - Funds for TC website and related expenses 9. Type and frequency of communication the TF should have with its membership - Website - At annual haptics conferences - Mailing list 10. Types of activities/service that the TF provides and other groups do not. The Executive Committee will work together to coordinate the scheduling of several major haptics conferences that are held annually, to coordinate special issues on haptics research, and to contribute towards a new IEEE Transactions on Haptics. There are currently no other umbrella organization that oversees world-wide haptics-related research and education activities. 11. Conferences the TF will create As mentioned above, there are three major haptics conferences that are held on regular basis: Haptics Symposium, EuroHaptics, and World Haptics Conference. Since 2002, the Haptics Symposium has been held in conjunction with IEEE VR under the sponsorship of VGTC in IEEE Computer Society. The EuroHaptics conference has traditionally been held independently by the organizers. The first World Haptics Conference (2005) was technically co-sponsored by the IEEE Computer Society, and this is the model for the second WHC in 2007 as well. The TF will be working closely with the steering and organizing committees of the three conferences with the goal to seek joint sponsorship from both the Computer Society and the Robotics and Automation Society for these three major haptics conferences. The TF will not be creating any new conferences in the near future. Instead, it will coordinate the scheduling and activities of these three haptics conferences. 12. Topics for books/tutorials/videos/disks the TF can produce At EuroHaptics 2006, the first day of the conference was dedicated to tutorials/workshops. The two half-day tutorials were titled “Perception-based haptic rendering” and “Tactile displays: from psychophysics of haptic texture to device design.” One workshop “H3D/VHTK” was presented by SenseGraphics AB. Although this was the first time that any major haptics conference had experimented with tutorials, the initial feedback from the conference attendees was very positive. It is expected that more tutorials will be planned for future haptics conferences. In the last few years, there have been numerous special issues on haptics-related research. A partial list appears below. FORMAT: Publisher Journal and title Editor Date Springer Virtual Reality Journal : "haptic interfaces and applications", Wall and Brewster 2006 (t.b.a) Springer LNCS Haptic Human-Computer Interaction, LNCS 2058, 2001, Wall and Brewster Springer LNCS Haptic and Audio Interaction Design, LNCS 4129, due August 2006, Wall and Brewster IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, Haptic rendering - beyond visual computing Ming Lin Salisbury, K. March-April 2004 (Volume: 24, Issue: 2) IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, Haptic rendering - Touch-Enabled Interfaces Ming Lin Salisbury, K. November/Decenter 2004 (Volume: 24, Issue: 6) IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics (TVCG) Special Issue on Haptics, Virtual and Augmented Reality November/December Issue of 2005 Burdea, Lin and Tachi Sensor Review Volume 24 Issue 1 2004 http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContainer.do? containerType=Journal&containerId=10877 Journal of Robotics and Mechatronics Special issue on Haptics: Interfaces, Applications, and Perception Haruhisa Kawasaki, M. Osama Alhalabi Vol. 18, No. 4, August 2006 These activities on tutorials and special issues are expected to continue in the next few years, with topics to be determined based on feedback from the haptics research community.