From November 12 to 14, the 4th AsiaHaptics Conference (AsiaHaptics2022) was held in Beijing Friendship Hotel. AsiaHaptics is an international conference for haptic fields featuring interactive presentations with demos. The conference this year is the first time held in China since its inception, aiming to present the latest research results in haptic fields at home and abroad and to provide haptic professionals with a platform for international exchanges
The conference was jointly hosted by Beihang University, Beijing Society of Image and Graphics, IEEE Technical Committee on Haptics, IEEE Computer Society, and Japanese Society of Virtual Reality, and organized by National Key Lab of Virtual Reality Technology and System and the School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation of Beihang University. China Human-Computer Interaction Technical Committee and China Virtual Reality and Visualization Technical Committee Computer Federation also assisted in the organizing work.
In view of restrictions caused by COVID-19 on international academic exchange, the conference this year was held on multiple venues, including the main venue in Beijing and parallel sessions in China’s Nanjing, Japan’s Tokyo and Korea’s Daejeon. The main venue in Beijing provided live streaming to the world and was open to the online audience for free. Scholars in haptic fields from Tsinghua University, Peking University, Beihang University, Southeast University, Xiamen University, Dalian University of Technology, Institute of Software of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Zhejiang Lab and other universities and research institutes across China gathered at the main venue while experts, researchers, technicians and business representatives from Japan, Korea, the United States, Italy, Germany, Russia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Switzerland, Hong Kong SAR and other countries and regions participated in the conference both online and offline.
Photo of participants at the main venue in Beijing
At the opening ceremony, experts at home and abroad, including Zhao Qinping, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and professor of Beihang University, Wang Yongtian, chairman of Beijing Society of Image and Graphics and professor of Beijing Institute of Technology, HirooIwata, founder of the AsiaHaptics and professor from the University of Tsukuba, and Prof. Dong-Soo Kwon from KAIST University, delivered speeches to extend their congratulations to the conference and recognition for the achievements of China in haptic fields.
The conference invited Prof. Wang Zhonglin, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Prof. Hong Z. Tan, IEEE Fellow, and Prof. Domenico Prattichizzo from the University of Siena, Italy to give keynote reports. Prof. Wang mainly introduced triboelectric nanotechnology in the aspects of principle, key technology, and applications in specific fields. Prof. Hong Z. Tan shared his unique insight in designing a tactile symbol through a system for conveying textual information, providing a design standard and implementation methods for information transmitting on the skin. Prof. Domenico Prattichizzo discussed the challenges faced by wearable haptic technology and proposed an innovative solution for two new applications in the related field, illustrating a promising future for haptic technology in the era of the metaverse.
AsiaHaptics 2022 has set three sharing forums on emerging technologies, 14 academic and technical reports which focus on the integration of haptics and robotics and applications in metaverse and industries, with professors, researchers, and scholars from domestic and international universities, institutes, and enterprises making presentations to express their perspectives and introduce the research results.
As a highlight of AsiaHaptics, the conference showcased 39 cutting-edge haptic research projects in a variety of formats, including dynamic live demonstrations, paper poster presentations and flash presentations. It enables on-site participants to experience the haptic technology in person through equipment of various kinds, which illustrates the promising future for the application of haptic technology. This has promoted communication between developers and users and attracted many experts and participants to experience the virtual touch.
At the same time, in Nanjing, Tokyo, and Daejeon, participants from all over the world listened to presentations from the main venue and conducted online academic exchanges. Both parallel sessions in Tokyo and Daejeon have attracted more than 100 participants discussing and experiencing interactive displays.
Parallel session in Nanjing, China
Parallel session in Tokyo, Japan
Parallel session in Daejeon, Korea
A total of 46 papers and 77 presentations were submitted from China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Russia, UAE, and other countries. 17 papers and 39 presentations were finally accepted for the conference. The paper titled “Delta Finger: a 3-DoF wearable haptic display enabling high-fidelity force vector presentation at a user’s finger” was selected by the organizing committee and won the Best Paper Award. Three teams from Tsinghua University and other universities were nominated for the Best Paper Award. The team from Beihang University won the Best Presentation Award for their work “Social companionship and diagnosis system for children with autism: A VR system with force and temperature feedback”. Besides, five teams from Peking University and other universities were nominated for the Best Presentation Award (the full list of winners can be found on the conference website). At the closing ceremony, these awards were presented by the organizing committee members, Associate Professor Chen Lihan from Peking University and Associate Professor Liu Qian from Dalian University of Technology.
As the metaverse technology develops by leaps and bounds, AsiaHaptics 2022 attracted much attention from academia and industry in haptics, human-computer interaction, virtual reality, and robotics, with more than 10,000 viewers worldwide watching the conference live stream. The conference attracted sponsorship and participation in industrial demonstrations from relevant companies such as Huawei Terminal Co Ltd, Force Dimension from Switzerland, Estun Medical, REDJBIRD, Anthap, Unidraw Virtual Reality, Beijing Lianbozy Technology, Fistar Technology, and Noitom Technology to promote the in-depth transformation and application of academic achievements in haptic fields.
Reported by Wang Dangxiao
Reviewed by Zhang Zhigang
Edited by Jia Aiping
Translated by Li Yifan
