Also available via Zoom
Engineering Touch: Design and Perception of Wearable Haptic Systems
Remote communications, training, and physical actions are now possible through a myriad of technologies. Most recently, this has enabled the rapid transition to fully remote workplaces and educational environments during COVID-19. However, the dependence on this technology during these times has also highlighted current limitations. While we have adapted to communicating through keyboards, mice, and touchscreens, these methods are unnatural and unsatisfying and extended use has led to physical and emotional exhaustion. Digital devices such as these only allow for communication through two sensory inputs: visual and auditory. Incorporating haptics as an additional channel for communication would engage the sense of touch to enhance the experience and augment information provided to the user. My research focuses precisely on this: developing haptic systems that can augment human interactions with various forms of advanced technology.
This talk will focus on the design of novel haptic systems and rendering algorithms to provide humans with touch information when communicating via a digital medium. I will present background on the sense of touch and some of the challenges involved in developing wearable haptic systems and illustrate how I leveraged this knowledge to design systems that use haptic illusions to create sensations often felt during social communication. I will also highlight contributions I have made as well as ongoing and future work in developing human-centered haptic systems that can be used for improved human-robot interaction as well as for applications within the medical field, virtual communication, and education among many others.
Bio: Cara M. Nunez started as an assistant professor in the Sibley School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Cornell University in July 2023. Prior to this, she was a Cornell Provost Faculty Fellow and conducted her fellowship at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences as a member of the Biorobotics Laboratory, the Microrobotics Laboratory, and the Move Lab. She received a Ph.D. in bioengineering and a M.S. in mechanical engineering from Stanford University working in the Collaborative Haptics and Robotics in Medicine Lab in 2021 and 2018, respectively. She was a visiting researcher in the Haptic Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems in 2019-2020. She received a B.S. in biomedical engineering and a B.A. in Spanish as a part of the International Engineering Program from the University of Rhode Island in 2016. She was a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) Graduate Research Fellowship, the Stanford Centennial Teaching Assistant Award, and the Stanford Community Impact Award and her work has been a Finalist for the Best Technical Paper at the IEEE Haptics Symposium in 2020 and in 2024. Her research interests include robotics, haptics, and human-centered design for medical applications, human-machine interaction, augmented and virtual reality, and STEM education, among others.