Seminar on Computational Haptics

Spring 2023
263-3712-00L
Juan Zarate
Thomas Langerak, Velko Vechev, Manuel Kaufmann, Christoph Gebhardt, Artur Grigorev, Ronan Hinchet
Tue 2-4pm, in-person at STD G1. Virtual option for external students.
2
Links for Zoom and Papers + Schedule (Credentials given in first lecture)

Overview

Haptic rendering technologies stimulate the user’s senses of touch and motion just as felt when interacting with physical objects. Actuation techniques need to address three questions: 1) What to actuate, 2) How to actuate it and 3) When to actuate it. We will approach each of these questions from a heavily technical perspective, with a focus on optimization and machine learning to find answers.



Teaser image for computational haptic course

Topics

The list of papers will be published shortly before the initial meeting. Topics will cover the following areas:

Research on actuators and sensors for Haptics

ML and Optimization methods for placement or control Hapic systems

Novel method for hand/body tracking (like IMU and EM)

Methods for hand/body reconstruction

Goal

The goal of the seminar is to familiarize students with exciting new research topics in this important area, but also to teach basic scientific writing and oral presentation skills.

We will use a case-study format where all students read the same paper each week but fulfill different roles and hence prepare with different viewpoints in mind.

Student roles:
  1. Presenter: Give a short presentation about the paper that you read in depth.
  2. Historian: Find out how this paper sits in the context of the related work. Use bibliography tools to find the most influential papers cited by this work and at least one paper influenced by the work (and summarize the two papers briefly).
  3. PhD student: Propose a follow-up project for your own research based on this paper - importantly the project should be directly inspired by the paper or even use/extend the method proposed.
  4. Journalist: After the presentation, write an article about the the paper that can be understood by the general public; include points from the general discussion during the seminar, the historian, or the PhD student
  5. All students (every week): Come up with an alternative title; did the paper miss anything?

Workload per student:
  1. Presenter role: 15 min presentation (1 x during the course)
  2. Historian role: 5 min presentation (1 x during the course)
  3. PhD student role: 300 words text (1 x during the course)
  4. Journalist role: 500 words text (1 x during the course)
  5. Read paper (weekly)

Attendance in the weekly meetings is mandatory.