BeBop Sensors’ AR/VR Forte Glove has been selected by a prestigious technology consortium known as “Team Aham,” led by the Indian Institute of Science, as part of the $10M ANA Avatar XPRIZE competition. The team has collaborated to create “Asha,” an avatar robot for next-generation social tele-robotics.
The $10 million competition calls for teams to create a robotic avatar system that can transport human senses, actions, and presence to remote locations in real time. Teams are asked to integrate multiple emerging technologies in their robotic avatar system, allowing users to see, hear, and interact with remote environments through tele-robotics. Team Aham selected BeBop’s Forte Glove for its haptic capabilities that uses six actuators to provide users with realistic sensations when their avatar is interacting with surroundings.
The Software Development Kit (SDK) provided by BeBop also streamlined the integration process with the team’s other hardware.
“The glove supports a variety of platforms such a C++, Python, Unity and Unreal, and the design is very minimalistic yet useful. Placement of sensors and haptic actuators is very well thought out and gives good feedback. The Bluetooth dongle has good connectivity and driver installation is simple (almost instant on Windows), making it easy to use the gloves wirelessly. The gloves also require no change in code, making integration seamless and saving our team time,” said Raviteja Upadrashta Ph.D, Team Aham.
Raviteja also pointed out the granularity of control BeBop provides with its acoustic-based haptics, which allows the team to choose between a variety of sound files to change the haptic sensations.
“BeBop is excited to have our Forte Glove integrated into Team Aham’s ANA Avatar XPRIZE award entry,” said Jerry Kurtze, Vice President of Business Development and Marketing. “These organizations are leaders in the AI and robotics space. By adding BeBop’s smart sensing technology, the team will continue to advance the way people interact with their environment through tele-robotics.”
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