“Haptic Collaboration: Biomedical Engineering Meets Digital Design” by Narahara, Abbruzzese and Foulds

This talk presents results of ongoing research and educational collaboration between the School of Art + Design (SoA+D) and the Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) at New Jersey Institute of Technology. This collaboration began when researchers from BME became aware of a series of projects by digital design students from SoA+D producing virtual games that interface with fabricated physical design prototypes with microcontrollers through the use of the Unity 3D game engine as an application hub to connect the virtual and real worlds. The BME researchers had developed a novel admittance-controlled haptic robotic exoskeleton for assisting the upper extremity motions of people with stroke and cerebral palsy and were seeking to integrate it with an engaging and challenging virtual environment that can retain a user’s interest. The result is a user-controlled haptic manipulator that allows individuals with neurological impairment to be therapeutically assisted by the exoskeleton (BME) while haptically interacting with virtual objects in a 3-D animated environment (SoA+D). The talk also introduces a new cross-disciplinary educational approach employing expertise of both academic units.