research-article

AirCharge: Amplifying Ungrounded Impact Force by Accumulating Air Propulsion Momentum

Authors:

Mike Y. ChenAuthors Info & Claims

UIST '23: Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

Article No.: 7, Pages 1 - 11

https://doi.org/10.1145/3586183.3606768

Published: 29 October 2023 Publication History

Abstract

Impact events, which generate directional forces with extremely short impulse durations and large force magnitudes, are prevalent in both virtual reality (VR) games and real-world experiences. However, despite recent advancement in ungrounded force feedback technologies, such as air jet propulsion and propellers, these technologies remain 5-100x weaker and 10-500x slower compared to real-world impact events. For instance, they can only achieve 4N with a minimal duration of 50-500ms compared to the 20-400N forces generated within 1-5ms for baseball, ping-pong, drumming, and tennis. To overcome these limitations, we present AirCharge, a novel haptic device that accumulates air propulsion momentum to generate instantaneous, directional impact forces. By mounting compressed air jets on rotating swingarms, AirCharge can amplify impact force magnitude by more than 10x while matching real-world impulse duration of 3ms. To support high-frequency impacts, we explored and evaluated a series of device designs, culminating in a novel reciprocating dual-swingarm design that leverages a reversing bevel gearbox to eliminate gyro effects and to achieve impact feedback of up to 10Hz. User experience evaluation (n = 16) showed that AirCharge significantly enhanced realism and is preferred by participants compared to air jets without the charging mechanism.

Supplemental Material

ZIP File

Supplemental File

Download
156.45 MB

References

[1]

Muhammad Abdullah, Minji Kim, Waseem Hassan, Yoshihiro Kuroda, and Seokhee Jeon. 2018. HapticDrone: An encountered-type kinesthetic haptic interface with controllable force feedback: Example of stiffness and weight rendering. In 2018 IEEE Haptics Symposium (HAPTICS). IEEE, San Francisco, CA, USA, 334–339. https://doi.org/10.1109/HAPTICS.2018.8357197

[2]

Akash Badshah, Sidhant Gupta, Daniel Morris, Shwetak Patel, and Desney Tan. 2012. GyroTab: A Handheld Device That Provides Reactive Torque Feedback. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Austin, Texas, USA) (CHI ’12). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 3153–3156. https://doi.org/10.1145/2207676.2208731

Digital Library

[3]

Jose Berna-Moya and Diego Martinez Plasencia. 2019. Exploring the Effects of Replicating Shape, Weight and Recoil Effects on VR Shooting Controllers. Springer, Cham, 763–782. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29381-9_45

Digital Library

[4]

Wenqiang Chi, Hedyeh Rafii-Tari, Christopher J. Payne, Jindong Liu, Celia Riga, Colin Bicknell, and Guang-Zhong Yang. 2017. A learning based training and skill assessment platform with haptic guidance for endovascular catheterization. In 2017 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). IEEE, IEEE, Singapore, 2357–2363. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICRA.2017.7989273

Digital Library

[5]

Inrak Choi and Sean Follmer. 2016. Wolverine: A Wearable Haptic Interface for Grasping in VR. In Proceedings of the 29th Annual Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (Tokyo, Japan) (UIST ’16 Adjunct). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 117–119. https://doi.org/10.1145/2984751.2985725

Digital Library

[6]

Cathy Fang, Yang Zhang, Matthew Dworman, and Chris Harrison. 2020. Wireality: Enabling Complex Tangible Geometries in Virtual Reality with Worn Multi-String Haptics. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Honolulu, HI, USA) (CHI ’20). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376470

Digital Library

[7]

Farzam Farbiz, Zhou Hao Yu, Corey Manders, and Waqas Ahmad. 2007. An Electrical Muscle Stimulation Haptic Feedback for Mixed Reality Tennis Game. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2007 Posters (San Diego, California) (SIGGRAPH ’07). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 140–es. https://doi.org/10.1145/1280720.1280873

Digital Library

[8]

Nisal Menuka Gamage, Deepana Ishtaweera, Martin Weigel, and Anusha Withana. 2021. So Predictable! Continuous 3D Hand Trajectory Prediction in Virtual Reality. In The 34th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (Virtual Event, USA) (UIST ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 332–343. https://doi.org/10.1145/3472749.3474753

Digital Library

[9]

H Hatze. 1976. Forces and duration of impact, and grip tightness during the tennis stroke. Med. Sci. Sports 8, 2 (1976), 88–95.

[10]

Seongkook Heo, Christina Chung, Geehyuk Lee, and Daniel Wigdor. 2018. Thor’s Hammer: An Ungrounded Force Feedback Device Utilizing Propeller-Induced Propulsive Force. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montreal QC, Canada) (CHI ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3174099

Digital Library

[11]

Seungwoo Je, Myung Jin Kim, Woojin Lee, Byungjoo Lee, Xing-Dong Yang, Pedro Lopes, and Andrea Bianchi. 2019. Aero-Plane: A Handheld Force-Feedback Device That Renders Weight Motion Illusion on a Virtual 2D Plane. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (New Orleans, LA, USA) (UIST ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 763–775. https://doi.org/10.1145/3332165.3347926

Digital Library

[12]

Seungwoo Je, Hyelip Lee, Myung Jin Kim, and Andrea Bianchi. 2018. Wind-Blaster: A Wearable Propeller-Based Prototype That Provides Ungrounded Force-Feedback. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2018 Emerging Technologies (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) (SIGGRAPH ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 23, 2 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3214907.3214915

Digital Library

[13]

Pedro Lopes, Alexandra Ion, and Patrick Baudisch. 2015. Impacto: Simulating physical impact by combining tactile stimulation with electrical muscle stimulation. In Proceedings of the 28th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 11–19.

Digital Library

[14]

Peter Merton McGinnis. 2020. Biomechanics of Sport and exercise. Human Kinetics, Champaign, Illinois.

[15]

Martin Murer, Bernhard Maurer, Hermann Huber, Ilhan Aslan, and Manfred Tscheligi. 2015. TorqueScreen: Actuated Flywheels for Ungrounded Kinaesthetic Feedback in Handheld Devices. In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Tangible, Embedded, and Embodied Interaction (Stanford, California, USA) (TEI ’15). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 161–164. https://doi.org/10.1145/2677199.2680579

Digital Library

[16]

Ali Rahimi, Jackson Zhou, and Sasan Haghani. 2020. A VR gun controller with Recoil Adjustability. In 2020 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE). IEEE, Las Vegas, NV, USA, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCE46568.2020.9043008

[17]

Evren Samur, Lionel Flaction, Ulrich Spaelter, Hannes Bleuler, David Hellier, and Sebastien Ourselin. 2008. A Haptic Interface with Motor/Brake System for Colonoscopy Simulation. In 2008 Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems. IEEE, Reno, Nev., 477–478. https://doi.org/10.1109/HAPTICS.2008.4479998

Digital Library

[18]

Tomoya Sasaki, Richard Sahala Hartanto, Kao-Hua Liu, Keitarou Tsuchiya, Atsushi Hiyama, and Masahiko Inami. 2018. Leviopole: Mid-Air Haptic Interactions Using Multirotor. In ACM SIGGRAPH 2018 Emerging Technologies (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) (SIGGRAPH ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 12, 2 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3214907.3214913

Digital Library

[19]

Shuntaro Shimizu, Takeru Hashimoto, Shigeo Yoshida, Reo Matsumura, Takuji Narumi, and Hideaki Kuzuoka. 2021. Unident: providing impact sensations on handheld objects via high-speed change of the rotational inertia. In 2021 IEEE Virtual Reality and 3D User Interfaces (VR). IEEE, IEEE, Lisboa, Portugal, 11–20.

[20]

Yuning Su, Weizhi Nai, Xiaoying Sun, and Zuowei Sun. 2021. Design and Modeling of an Ungrounded Haptic Gun that Simulates Recoil Using Asymmetric Force. In 2021 IEEE World Haptics Conference (WHC). IEEE, Montreal, Canada, 361–366. https://doi.org/10.1109/WHC49131.2021.9517202

[21]

Fong Wee Teck, Huang Zhiyong, Farzam Farbiz, Cher Jingting, Chin Ching Ling, and Susanto Rahardja. 2011. Ungrounded Handheld Device for Simulating High-Forces of Ball Impacts in Virtual Tennis. In SIGGRAPH Asia 2011 Emerging Technologies (Hong Kong, China) (SA ’11). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 20, 1 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/2073370.2073389

Digital Library

[22]

Ching-Yi Tsai, I-Lun Tsai, Chao-Jung Lai, Derrek Chow, Lauren Wei, Lung-Pan Cheng, and Mike Y. Chen. 2022. AirRacket: Perceptual Design of Ungrounded, Directional Force Feedback to Improve Virtual Racket Sports Experiences. In Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (New Orleans, LA, USA) (CHI ’22). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 185, 15 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3491102.3502034

Digital Library

[23]

Hsin-Ruey Tsai and Bing-Yu Chen. 2019. ElastImpact: 2.5D Multilevel Instant Impact Using Elasticity on Head-Mounted Displays. In Proceedings of the 32nd Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (New Orleans, LA, USA) (UIST ’19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 429–437. https://doi.org/10.1145/3332165.3347931

Digital Library

[24]

Yu-Wei Wang, Yu-Hsin Lin, Pin-Sung Ku, Yōko Miyatake, Yi-Hsuan Mao, Po Yu Chen, Chun-Miao Tseng, and Mike Y. Chen. 2021. JetController: High-Speed Ungrounded 3-DoF Force Feedback Controllers Using Air Propulsion Jets. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Yokohama, Japan) (CHI ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 124, 12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445549

Digital Library

[25]

Ralf Widenhorn. 2016. The physics of juggling a spinning ping-pong ball. American Journal of Physics 84, 12 (2016), 936–942. https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4964104 arXiv:https://doi.org/10.1119/1.4964104

[26]

Kyle N. Winfree, Jamie Gewirtz, Thomas Mather, Jonathan Fiene, and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker. 2009. A high fidelity ungrounded torque feedback device: The iTorqU 2.0. In World Haptics 2009 - Third Joint EuroHaptics conference and Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems. IEEE, Salt Lake City, UT, USA, 261–266. https://doi.org/10.1109/WHC.2009.4810866

Digital Library

[27]

Kyle N. Winfree, Joseph M. Romano, Jamie Gewirtz, and Katherine J. Kuchenbecker. 2010. Control of a high fidelity ungrounded torque feedback device: The iTorqU 2.1. In 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. IEEE, Anchorage, AK, USA, 1347–1352. https://doi.org/10.1109/ROBOT.2010.5509485

[28]

Bob G. Witmer, Christian J. Jerome, and Michael J. Singer. 2005. The Factor Structure of the Presence Questionnaire. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 14, 3 (06 2005), 298–312. https://doi.org/10.1162/105474605323384654 arXiv:https://direct.mit.edu/pvar/article-pdf/14/3/298/1624394/105474605323384654.pdf

Digital Library

Cited By

Ryo NRatsamee PUranishi YTakemura H(2024)A Non-contact Translational and Rotational Force Feedback Device using Rotational Jet Propellers2024 SICE International Symposium on Control Systems (SICE ISCS)10.23919/SICEISCS60954.2024.10505747(113-119)Online publication date: 18-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.23919/SICEISCS60954.2024.10505747
Zhang ZLi JYan ZNishida JPeng H(2024)JetUnit: Rendering Diverse Force Feedback in Virtual Reality Using Water JetsProceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3654777.3676440(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654777.3676440
Fan CWu ECheng CChang YLopez AChen YChi CChan YTsai CChen M(2024)SpinShot: Optimizing Both Physical and Perceived Force Feedback of Flywheel-Based, Directional Impact Handheld DevicesProceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3654777.3676433(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654777.3676433
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

AirCharge: Amplifying Ungrounded Impact Force by Accumulating Air Propulsion Momentum
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Interaction devices
      1. Haptic devices

Recommendations

AirRacket: Perceptual Design of Ungrounded, Directional Force Feedback to Improve Virtual Racket Sports Experiences
CHI '22: Proceedings of the 2022 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

We present AirRacket, perceptual modeling and design of ungrounded, directional force feedback for virtual racket sports. Using compressed air propulsion jets to provide directional impact forces, we iteratively designed for three popular sports that ...
JetController: High-speed Ungrounded 3-DoF Force Feedback Controllers using Air Propulsion Jets
SIGGRAPH '21: ACM SIGGRAPH 2021 Labs

JetController is a novel high-speed, persistent 3-DoF ungrounded force feedback controller. It uses high-speed pneumatic solenoid valves to modulate compressed air to achieve full impulses of 50Hz at 1.0N (20Hz at 4.0N), and combines multiple air ...
Demonstration of JetController: High-speed Ungrounded Force Feedback Controllers Using Air Propulsion Jets
CHI EA '21: Extended Abstracts of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

JetController is a novel haptic technology capable of supporting high-speed and persistent 3-DoF ungrounded force feedback. It uses high-speed pneumatic solenoid valves to modulate compressed air to achieve 20-50Hz of full impulses at 4.0-1.0N and ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

UIST '23: Proceedings of the 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

October 2023

1825 pages

ISBN:9798400701320

DOI:10.1145/3586183

Editors:
Sean Follmer
Stanford University, USA
,
Jeff Han,
Jürgen Steimle
Saarland University, Germany
,
Nathalie Henry Riche
Microsoft Research, USA

Copyright © 2023 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

Sponsors

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 29 October 2023

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article
Research
Refereed limited

Funding Sources

National Science and Technology Council of Taiwan
Ministry of Education

Conference

UIST '23

Sponsor:

UIST '23: The 36th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

October 29 - November 1, 2023

CA, San Francisco, USA

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 561 of 2,567 submissions, 22%

Upcoming Conference

UIST '25

Sponsor:
sigchi
sigchi

The 38th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology

September 28 - October 1, 2025

Busan , Republic of Korea

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

5
Total Citations
View Citations
647
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)354
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)20

Reflects downloads up to 27 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Ryo NRatsamee PUranishi YTakemura H(2024)A Non-contact Translational and Rotational Force Feedback Device using Rotational Jet Propellers2024 SICE International Symposium on Control Systems (SICE ISCS)10.23919/SICEISCS60954.2024.10505747(113-119)Online publication date: 18-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.23919/SICEISCS60954.2024.10505747
Zhang ZLi JYan ZNishida JPeng H(2024)JetUnit: Rendering Diverse Force Feedback in Virtual Reality Using Water JetsProceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3654777.3676440(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654777.3676440
Fan CWu ECheng CChang YLopez AChen YChi CChan YTsai CChen M(2024)SpinShot: Optimizing Both Physical and Perceived Force Feedback of Flywheel-Based, Directional Impact Handheld DevicesProceedings of the 37th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology10.1145/3654777.3676433(1-15)Online publication date: 13-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3654777.3676433
Ma YXie TZhang PKim HJe S(2024)AirPush: A Pneumatic Wearable Haptic Device Providing Multi-Dimensional Force Feedback on a FingertipProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642536(1-13)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642536
Lu PWang CHsu YLopez ATsai CChang CTan WLu LChen M(2024)VeeR: Exploring the Feasibility of Deliberately Designing VR Motion that Diverges from Mundane, Everyday Physical Motion to Create More Entertaining VR ExperiencesProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642064(1-13)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642064

View Options

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

HTML Format

View this article in HTML Format.

Figures

Tables

Media

View Table of Conten