Ultrasound system to create mouth-based VR effects

The team at Carnegie Mellon University claims to have created a system small and light enough to attach to the bottom of virtual reality (VR) goggles, using airborne ultrasound waves to create sensations in the mouth.

Vivian Shen, a second-year PhD student in the university’s Robotics Institute, gave the potential use case example of a VR world with a drinking fountain, explaining that users would be able to feel a stream of water across their lips when leaning down to the VR ‘fountain’ in an immersive experience.

Working in the Future Interfaces Group (FIG), Shen collaborated with Craig Shultz, a post-doctoral fellow in the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII), using the system to create such haptic effects as raindrops, mud splatter and crawling bugs. Shen and Shultz developed the system with Chris Harrison, associate professor in the HCII and director of the FIG lab. 

Though the mouth is known for its sensitivity, researchers have had difficulty rendering haptic effects on it, Shen said, as VR users don’t like to put things in or cover their mouths. She noted that whilst a recent effort employed a tiny robotic arm that could flick a feather across the lips or spray them with water, this would not be practical for widespread use.