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Pioneering company wins engineering award
A pioneering Bristol company which has developed technology that uses ultrasound to create tactile sensations in mid-air has been awarded a prestigious award from the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) for revolutionising the way people interact with machines.
Ultrahaptics, founded by Tom Carter during his PhD studies at the University of Bristol, collected the 2016 Colin Campbell Mitchell Award, presented to an individual or team of up to six engineers in the UK who have made the greatest contribution to the advancement of any field of engineering over the past four years.
His technology enables users to feel virtual buttons, switches and dials, 3D shapes and virtual force fields in mid-air, and has attracted the commercial interest for home audio and appliances, cars and 3D computing from companies such as Jaguar Land Rover. It’s argued that the research has placed the UK at the forefront of international computer-human interaction engineering.
Tom said: “It’s a privilege to have our work be recognised by the Royal Academy of Engineering. We see the development of this technology as the first step on a journey which will forever transform the way humans interact with computers, and the whole team is very excited to be at the forefront of this era of change.”
Chairman of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Awards committee, Nigel Perry, added: “’Ultrahaptics’ technology has made a pioneering contribution to this hugely exciting field and provides an excellent example of how engineering research and ingenuity continues to advance the interface between society and technology.”
Read more: A glimpse of the future
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