Who studies Haptics

Historically, 'haptics' have beenstarted by robotics researchers who study telerobotics. Basically, theideal telerobotics system should satisfyt telepresence. That meanshuman must be in illusion that he is touching real object while he isexploring a distant environment though master-salve telerobotic system.They have focused on controller design for the stability andtransparency for a long time.
If the slave robot and its environment is virtual, the controllerdesign must be much easier that real teleoperated system since a lot ofuncertainty, intertia and etc. could be disapperaed. Therefore, theinterest in haptic display has been spreaded over the graphicsresearchers. In addition, since the methodology of modeling texture isessential part of haptics, cognitive scientist and neuroscientist havestarted applying their knowledge to represent tactile information.

Let's enumerate active haptics research leaders...

Tactile perception & Psychophysics
- Mandayam A. Srinivasan, MIT Touch Lab, http://touchlab.mit.edu
- Susan J. Lederman, Queen's University at Kingston, http://pavlov.psyc.queensu.ca/faculty/lederman/lederman.html
- Hong Z. Tan, Purdue University, http://dynamo.ecn.purdue.edu/~hongtan
- Jan Weisenberger, Ohio State University, Center for Cognitive Science, http://www.cog.ohio-state.edu/
- Dinesh Pai, Rutgers University, http://www.cs.rutgers.edu/~dpai/

Biomechanics
- Allison M. Okamura, Haptic Exploration Lab at Johns Hopkins University, http://www.haptics.me.jhu.edu/
- Mandayam A. Srinivasan, MIT Touch Lab, http://touchlab.mit.edu
- Robert Howe, BioRobotics Lab at Harvard Unversity, http://biorobotics.harvard.edu/

Tactile Display
- Mandayam A. Srinivasan, MIT Touch Lab, http://touchlab.mit.edu
- Vincent Hayward, Haptics Laboratory at Mc. Gill University, http://www.cim.mcgill.ca/~haptic
- Robert Howe, BioRobotics Lab at Harvard Unversity, http://biorobotics.harvard.edu/

Teleoperation and Control
- Blake Hannaford, BioRobotics Lab at University of Washington, http://brl.ee.washington.edu/
- Allison M. Okamura, Haptic Exploration Lab at Johns Hopkins University, http://www.haptics.me.jhu.edu/
- Yasuyoshi YOKOKOHJI, Kyoto University, http://www.me.kyoto-u.ac.jp/lab/yoshikawa/home/yokokohji/index.html
- Günter Niemeyer, Stanford University, http://me.stanford.edu/faculty/facultydir/niemeyer.html

Haptic Rendering
- Cagatay Basdogan, Koc University, Turkey, http://network.ku.edu.tr/~cbasdogan/
- Ming C. Lin, University of North Carolina, http://www.cs.unc.edu/~lin/
- Kenneth Salisbury, Salisbury Research Group at Stanford University, http://jks-folks.stanford.edu/

Applications
- Allison M. Okamura, Haptic Exploration Lab at Johns Hopkins University, http://www.haptics.me.jhu.edu/
- Massimo Bergamasco, PERCRO at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna, http://www-percro.sssup.it
- Kenneth Salisbury, Salisbury Research Group at Stanford University, http://jks-folks.stanford.edu/