There is a team deep in Reality Labs (RL) Research tasked with inventing the future of interaction in augmented and virtual reality. To deliver a realistic sense of touch, a haptic glove needs hundreds of actuators all over the hand, moving in concert in a way that makes the wearer feel like they’re touching a virtual object. The team has made progress with miniaturizing pneumatic actuators, which use air pressure to create force.
To control these new soft actuators, they’re building the world’s first high-speed microfluidic processor, a tiny microfluidic chip on the glove that controls the air flow that moves the actuators, by telling the valves when and how far to open and close. Advanced hand tracking technology that could enable the computer to know precisely where your hand is in a virtual scene, whether you’re in contact with a virtual object, and how your hand is interacting with the object.
More information:
https://tech.fb.com/inside-reality-labs-meet-the-team-thats-bringing-touch-to-the-digital-world/