New Virtual Reality Suit Lets You Reach Out & Touch 'Environment'

Virtual reality could one day incorporate all the senses, creating a rich and immersive experience, but existing virtual reality headsets only simulate things you can see and hear. But now, a group of engineers wants to help people "touch" virtual environments in a more natural way, and they built a wearable suit to do just that.

Designed by Lucian Copeland, Morgan Sink and Jordan Brooks while they were students at the University of Rochester, in New York, the suit looks something like a bulletproof vest or light armour. Each section of the suit has a small motor in it, not unlike the one that makes a mobile phone vibrate to signal incoming messages. In addition, there are small accelerometers embedded in the suit's arms.

The vibrations provide a sense of touch when a virtual object hits that part of the body, and the accelerometers help orient the suit's limbs in space, the researchers said.

When the suit is connected via a cable to a computer, it links to a virtual reality (VR) headset, such as the Oculus Rift or HTC's Vive. The suit also shares data with a motion-tracking system — the current version connects to a Microsoft Kinect, but any system will do, according to Copeland.

The combination of motion-tracking and accelerometers means that it doesn't matter if your arm is out of view of the camera because the program generating the virtual environment will "know" where your hand is and can calculate where it is most likely to be, based on how long your arm is and what the accelerometer tells the device about how your hand is moving.

With that information, a virtual environment can show a tree branch, for example, and tell the suit to vibrate in the spot where it would touch if it were hitting your side or if you were touching it with your hand, the researchers said. It can also set up virtual walls that you could feel. This way, when you are walking around in your virtual environment, you won't accidently bump into a real wall or trip over your coffee table.

"The real issue is when you use controllers to move in a virtual reality space — it doesn't correlate to movement," Copeland told Live Science. "The tracking component lets you get out of the chair and walk around."