BusinessWeek: October 9, 1995

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 Science & Technology: VIRTUAL REALITY

CALL IT PALPABLE PROGRESS

Dr. Thomas M. Krummel, chairman of the department of surgery at Penn State Medical College, slowly guided a biopsy needle into a small, hollow cone pressed against a skull. Pushing the needle in, he hit resistance, followed by a gentle pop as he pierced the outer skull. A second, harder pop told him he had penetrated the inner skull. The needle then slid easily through two inches of soft brain tissue and stopped. Probing gently, Krummel felt a solid mass: a tumor. One firm poke, and he was inside it.

This "operation" took place last fall. But there was no blood or brain tissue, or even a patient. Instead, Krummel was using one of the most advanced inter-faces yet developed for a personal computer. The brain tumor was an image on a computer screen. The needle was a thimble on the end of his finger, held in place by a robotic arm. Through the thimble, Krummel controlled the needle on the screen, and "felt" resistance thanks to three motors guiding the thimble's response. "The accuracy is excellent," says Krummel. "It's truly awesome."

The object of Krummel's praise is a desktop system called the Phantom. Although still a prototype, it represents a technological leap forward for the field of virtual reality. That's because, compared with mind-bending 3-D illusions from companies such as Silicon Graphics Inc., the technology to simulate touch--known as "force feedback"--is in its infancy. Scientists and product designers crave this tactile dimension, to enhance their engineering simulations (table). And though rival systems exist, the Phantom is the most flexible and economical. "This is a real breakthrough," says Professor Patrick H. Winston, the head of Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Artificial Intelligence Lab, where the Phantom was invented.

INSTANT SENSATION. The Phantom's simplicity springs from necessity. Thomas H. Massie, 24, built the first version in a rush, for his senior thesis project at MIT in 1993. The idea came from his adviser, J. Kenneth Salisbury, a principal research scientist at the AI lab. Together, the two applied for a patent and formed SensAble Devices Inc. in Cambridge, Mass.

The Phantom was an instant sensation among robotics and computer control mavens. Despite its crude appearance--the system had exposed wires running along the robotic arm, and a container the size of a lunchbox for the circuit boards--orders began to flood in. Over the next year, SensAble sold 40 Phantoms to some of America's top virtual reality labs.

The two inventors have plenty of competition. Force-feedback devices have been around since the 1970s, when the Atomic Energy Commission began using remote-control robots to handle radioactive materials. These systems were expensive and highly specialized. But lately, other small companies have rushed in. Cybernet Systems Corp., based in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Immersion Corp. in Santa Clara, Calif., both have PC-based force-feedback systems.

Still, the Phantom's growing ranks of supporters say that for just under $20,000, SensAble's design offers the best tactile response. "What's special about this," says John Armstrong, a former vice-president for science and technology at IBM, "is that it's small and handy and will adapt to any number of uses." Adds John Latta, president of high-tech consulting firm 4th Wave Inc. in Alexandria, Va.: "No one has been as good at tactile feedback."

The technology behind the Phantom is integrally linked to advances in low-cost computing power, according to Salisbury. The system runs on a fast Intel Pentium processor. It allows designers to write software that simultaneously processes signals from motion sensors on the Phantom's arm and sends instructions back to the motors, telling them how much pressure to apply to the thimbles. The whole digital relay race repeats 1,000 times each second, making the Phantom sensitive to the subtlest hand motions.

PRIZE PUPIL. Constructing such systems is nothing new for Massie. As a ninth-grader in Vanceboro, Ky., he built a computer-activated robotic arm and won second prize in an international science fair. Earlier this year, MIT gave him its most prestigious prize for invention.

Next, he'll have to make Phantom perform in the marketplace. The product is still too rough for mass production. And even some techies in SensAble's camp, such as Marc H. Raibert, president of virtual reality consultant Boston Dynamics Inc., says the Phantom can be "difficult to program." Worse, the window of opportunity could be closing. While Massie talks about turning the Phantom into a $200 joystick for the computer-game market, rival Exos Corp., in Waltham, Mass., may be ready to ship such a product next year.

To whip the operation into shape, Massie and Salisbury hired former IBM finance and marketing manager Bill Aulet as president in July. Aulet hopes to raise venture capital to expand production and to hire more programmers. Initially, he says, SensAble will target surgeons, who could use the Phantom to rehearse procedures before actually raising their scalpels. Aulet is also working on a software "toolkit" to help users design their own applications.

If he can keep these programs on track, Massie thinks the Phantom's superior performance will win customer loyalty and set a standard. "We're going to have to grow quickly or get steamrolled," Massie says. He has already demonstrated that force feedback can be a force in research labs. Now he has to show that it's ready for the mass market.







THE BENEFITS OF TOUCH

Although still a prototype, SensAble Devices' Phantom offers a glimpse of what force-feedback can do for science and industry





BIOLOGY At the University of North Carolina, scientists use the Phantom to handle models of experimental drugs and sense how they might fit into a virus to inhibit it.



AUTOS AND DEFENSE Chrysler may use the Phantom to let engineers run their hands over virtual buttons and dials. GTE uses it to mock up radar control panels.



ENTERTAINMENT SensAble wants to adapt the Phantom as a game joystick that can reproduce vibrations of a tank on rough terrain or the feeling of opening a trapdoor.

By Geoffrey Smith in Boston
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