A Florida-based military training and technology company, ECS (Engineering & Computer Simulations) has been awarded a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) project to develop “haptics-based mixed reality training systems within the U.S. Army’s Synthetic Training Environment.”
The project will be developed in conjunction with the Defense Health Agency and includes a partnership with haptic glove company HaptX and the Mayo Clinic at the College of Medicine and Science in Florida.
“This type of haptics integration offers a sense of touch and natural interactions within various virtual, augmented, and mixed reality scenarios,” said Waymon Armstrong, ECS CEO and President. “When applied in a medical environment, this integration with TC3 will provide our Warfighters and healthcare professionals the tools that they need to improve their quality of training and retention to potentially save more lives.””
The HaptX Gloves will be integrated into several areas of medical training in the Department of Defense, which aim to provide haptic feedback in training environments, as to reduce the need for “live tissue training.” The programs will use both augmented and virtual reality systems, with multi-user capabilities and training analytics and assessment tools.
Joe Michaels, the Chief Revenue Officer of HaptX, says that the company’s technology is “uniquely suited” to work with the U.S. Army’s training programs, and feel that the the gloves will be able to “increase the effectiveness of mixed reality training for military and civilian healthcare professionals.”
Back in December last year, HaptX announced a new $12 million funding round and the next month, we got to try the gloves at CES 2020.
