Ahmed Farooq

Tampere University | UTA · Department of Computer Science

Head-Up Displays (HUDs) in passenger vehicles are increasingly recognized as a promising technology for enhancing driver immersion and improving road safety by projecting essential information directly into the driver’s line of sight. Despite the apparent advantages, HUD systems have also been associated with challenges, particularly concerning cog...

This research introduces rheACT, an innovative implantable actuator that utilizes magnetorheological (MR) fluids encased in hydrogel to deliver precision haptic feedback. The system leverages the tunable properties of MR fluids, which alter their viscosity in response to external magnetic fields, allowing for real-time, localized tactile feedback w...

The current food production system is unsustainable, necessitating a shift towards plant-based diets. Nutritious options fulfill basic needs but may not satisfy hedonic ones. Our novel approach is to promote healthier eating habits without compromising on the pleasantness of eating by using extended reality technologies and multimodal interaction....

Recent progress in artificial intelligence, particularly deep learning, has ushered in a new era of autonomously generated content spanning text, audio, and visuals. This means Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, Llama2, Claude, and PaLM 2 are now developed enough to not only fill in the gaps within user-generated content, but also create...

Driving demands a significant amount of visual attention, which may impair drivers’ ability to detect and react to visual information such as blind spot warnings. This online pilot study (N =242) evaluated the perception of binaural auditory cues and concurrent visual animations about overtaking vehicles designed to improve drivers’ situational awa...

We studied two interaction techniques to perform secondary tasks in a driving simulator environment with the focus on driving safety. In both techniques, the participants (N = 20) used gaze pointing to select virtual task buttons. Toggling the controls was achieved by either mid-air gestures with haptic feedback or physical buttons located on the s...

The aim was to utilize ultrasound skin stimulation (UH) on a palm to inform the system state when interacting with mid-air hand gestures in the automotive context. Participants navigated a horizontal menu using touch, buttons, and hand gestures during simulated driving. Mid-air interaction and UH feedback design was tested in two studies. The first...

The automotive evolution in virtual controls for touchscreen interaction provides the opportunity to manage and manipulate In-vehicle Infotainment (IVI) system without the need for large physical control. However, as most of these virtual controls are designed for visual feedback in PCs and mobile devices, their implementation can have usability an...

As virtual and mixed reality hardware systems become more mainstream, users are spending substantial amounts of time in simulated environments. Unlike the transition from desktop to mobile devices, VR/XR utilizes 360 wrap-around space which can be challenging to master even for experienced users. Tasks and tools commonly utilized in 2D environments...

In the contemporary food landscape, where easily accessible and appetizing food options prevail, the issue of overconsumption and its contribution to global obesity concerns remains a critical societal and research challenge. While it is well-established that sensory appeal plays a key role in motivating eating behaviour, recent studies have unders...

In the last few year advances in deep learning and artificial intelligence have made it possible to generate high-quality text, audio, and visual content automatically for a wide range of application areas including research and education. However, designing and customizing an effective R&D tool capable of providing necessary tool-specific output,...

The present study investigates the affordance of vibrotactile signals in a simulated haunted house. Participants experienced a virtual séance using a head-mounted display, sound, and haptic stimuli on the palm and thighs. In one condition, six unique, handcrafted haptic signals (cicadas, frog, thunder, earthquake, heartbeat, knock) were presented a...

Touch between people is an integral part of human life. Touch is used to convey information, emotions, and other social cues. Still, everyday remote communication remains mainly auditive or audio-visual. The theme of this article, interpersonal haptic communication, refers to any communication system that supports mediation of touch between two or...

As the automotive industry transitions to electric and autonomous vehicles (SAE 2-3) more and more information needs to be reviewed by the driver in real-time. Conventional information presentation techniques are not ideal for reviewing this type of information as it lacks multimodal and cross modal presentation. Haptics, one of the key interaction...

Mid-air ultrasound skin stimulation is a known technology used to provide haptic feedback for touchless communication. Even though some in-car interaction already takes place with mid-air gestures, the utilization of this type of feedback is still uncommon. In this study we evaluated how environmental vibration affects the recognition of ultrasound...

Mid-air ultrasound skin stimulation is a known technology used to provide haptic feedback for touchless communication. Even though some in-car interaction already takes place with mid-air gestures, the utilization of this type of feedback is still uncommon. In this study we evaluated how environmental vibration affects the recognition of ultrasound...

When designing extended reality (XR) applications, it is important to consider multimodal interaction techniques, which employ several human senses simultaneously. Multimodal interaction can transform how people communicate remotely, practice for tasks, entertain themselves, process information visualizations, and make decisions based on the provid...

More than 50 years since its mass market introduction the core user interfaces of Video Conferencing (VC) systems have essentially been unchanged. Relaying real time audio and video over distance is inherently productive. However, it lacks the sense of in-person interaction. With the current global pandemic, additional privacy concerns over the ext...

Vibrotactile feedback is affected by the properties of the material and structure that transmit vibration from an actuator to the entire device surface. The stimuli felt by the skin may be distorted or attenuated at different locations of the device surface. Therefore, it is important to understand how the source vibration can be properly mediated...

Methods of interaction and information presentation in the automotive context have continuously been evolving in the last decade Essentially, there is an inherent need to design and research in-vehicle systems that complement and natively support a multimodal approach towards driver-vehicle interaction. Basically, most IVI tasks are classified as s...

As our interaction in virtual space expands from 2D to 3D, the absence of meaningful touch output restricts our ability to explore new virtual frontiers. The core limitation of not being able to reach out and feel or interpolate an object or sense its texture and form, within a virtual environment, hinders the intuitiveness of the interaction exper...

As VR, and AR become more popular forms of interaction with standalone and wearable computing systems, there is an inherent need to redefine the role of haptics in virtual environments. Complex virtual environments require more comprehensive tactile information. For this reason, primitive tactile signals currently being used in most commercial syst...

Semiautonomous driving still requires the driver's control and attention in certain situations. Especially control transitions, i.e. take-over and hand-over situations, are important for safety. Our aim was to study control transitions supported by unimodal (i.e. visual, auditory, or haptic) or multimodal (i.e. visual, auditory and haptic) signals...

Methods of information presentation in the automotive space have been evolving continuously in recent years. As technology pushes forward the boundaries of what is possible, automobile manufacturers are trying to keep up with the current trends. Traditionally, the often-long development and quality control cycles of the automotive sector ensured sl...

Human augmentation is a field of research that aims to enhance human abilities through medicine or technology. This has historically been achieved by consuming chemical substances that improve a selected ability or by installing implants which require medical operations. Both of these methods of augmentation can be invasive. Augmented abilities hav...

As research into autonomous vehicles gets mainstream, automobile manufacturers are trying to reinvent the ways we operate and interact with our vehicles. This is now more evident in the central instrument clusters than ever before. While some manufacturers are focusing on adding touchscreens to replace most in-vehicular infotainment (IVI) controls,...

One embodiment relates to a method for creating a fast vanishing light scattering surface/volume to which an image is projected. The method includes: creating two portions of atomized particles of a given particle size that does not allow an incident light having a visible spectrum from being scattered, reflected and/or dissipated; and ejecting the...

One embodiment relates to a haptic stylus includes: a stylus housing; a stylus tip attached to one end of the stylus housing, so as to be in contact with an interaction surface, such as a touchscreen; a stylus covering attached to a circumference of the stylus housing, so as to be movable with respect to the stylus housing along a longitudinal dire...

One embodiment of the present invention provides a haptic device including a flexible and deformable tube, a liquid or gel-like substance, a sensor and an actuator. The flexible and deformable tube is affixed to a grip area to be gripped by a user. The liquid or gel-like substance is sealed within the tube and configured to transmit a pressure or/a...

One embodiment of the present invention provides a tactile imaging system. The tactical imaging system includes: a receptive field tactile control unit; and a connecting module configured to connect the tactile imaging system with a host system. In addition, the receptive field tactile control unit includes: a monitoring module configured to monito...

One embodiment of the present invention provides a living body stimulation device including: an envelope body having a living body contact surface which is to be brought into contact with a stimulation-target site of a living body; a propagation medium sealed in the envelope body and made of a liquid or gel material capable of transmitting a vibrat...

Kinesthetic information is beneficial in detecting, recognizing, and interpreting haptic objects in virtual space. Unfortunately, kinesthetic feedback requires linkage-based high-powered multi-dimensional manipulators, such as exoskeletons or robotic arms, which are currently not possible to integrate with mobile devices. To overcome this challenge...

Kinesthetic feedback requires linkage-based high-powered multi-dimensional manipulators, which are currently not possible to integrate with mobile devices. To overcome this challenge, we developed a novel system that can utilize a wide range of actuation components and apply various techniques to optimize stick-slip motion of a tangible object on a...

This paper investigates the possibility of providing one-directional micro-displacement-based tactile feedback for touchscreen displays on mobile devices, utilizing the existing haptic actuators and transducers. Most existing systems use a generic vibration signal, transmitted throughout the entire device, irrespective of the point of interaction....

The objective of the current driving simulator study (N = 20) was to assess brake reaction time (BRT) and subjective experiences of visual (V), tactile (T), and visual–tactile (VT) collision warnings when the drivers’ visual orientation was manipulated between four locations (i.e., road and three different mirror locations). V warning was a blinkin...

In this paper we have evaluated various electromagnetic and piezoelectric actuators, originally designed for indirect haptic interaction on touchscreen mobile devices, using a transparent Liquid Screen Overlay (LSO). In line with our previous work with mediation of haptic signals, this research focuses on methods of attenuating acoustic components...

Navigation systems usually require visual or auditory attention. Providing the user with haptic cues could potentially decrease cognitive demand in navigation. This study is investigating the use of haptic eyeglasses in navigation. We conducted an experiment comparing directional haptic cues to visual cueing in a car navigation task. Participants (...

Haptics has been an integral part of multimodal systems in Human Computer Interaction (HCI). The ability to touch and sense virtual components of any system has long been the holy grail of HCI, which is particularly useful in mission critical environments where other modalities are weakened by environmental noise. Haptics also compliments most moda...

Touchscreens are becoming a more attractive interaction technology in our daily lives and they are quickly replacing most of the conventional user interface controls. The ability to continuously modify and reconfigure screen contacts is a valuable feature in any device, especially in mobile devices like smartphones and tablets, where every inch mat...

Haptic feedback based on the sense of touch and movement is a promising area of human-computer interaction in the car context. Most user studies on haptic feedback in the car have been controlled experiments of specific types of haptic stimuli. For the study presented in this paper, twelve participants tried novel haptic feedback prototypes and eva...

Existing car navigation systems require visual or auditory attention. Providing the driver with directional cues could potentially increase safety. We conducted an experiment comparing directional haptic and non-speech audio cues to visual cueing in a navigation task. Participants (N=16) drove the Lane Change Test simulator with different navigatio...