Interfaces  

Working with ultrasound, researchers have developed a new method of haptic feedback. The approach lets users feel invisible holograms in mid-air.

You wont have to imagine what it would be like to touch a priceless artifact in a musuem, or a character from a video game, or your in-progress CAD file, or an organ scanned from your own body in the future.  Researchers have developed a prototype method for creating three-dimensional haptic shapes in mid-air using focused ultrasound. The potential applications for the technology are nearly limitless, and will help define how we interact with digital media in a few years.

Unlike another method that used puffs of air, the approach applies the principles of acoustic radiation force, whereby the non-linear effects of sound produce forces on the skin which are strong enough to generate tactile sensations.

This mid-air haptic feedback eliminates the need for any attachment of actuators or contact with physical devices.

The user perceives a discernible haptic shape when the corresponding acoustic interference pattern is generated above a precisely controlled two-dimensional phased array of ultrasound transducers.

"Touchable holograms, immersive virtual reality that you can feel and complex touchable controls in free space, are all possible ways of using this system."

The research published in ACM Transactions on Graphics, was led by Dr Ben Long and colleagues Professor Sriram Subramanian, Sue Ann Seah and Tom Carter from the University of Bristol’s Department of Computer Science, could change the way 3D shapes are used.  The new technology could enable surgeons to explore a CT scan by enabling them to feel a disease, such as a tumor, or bones from an X-, using haptic feedback.

The method uses ultrasound, which is focused onto hands above the device and that can be felt. By focusing complex patterns of ultrasound, the air disturbances can be felt as floating 3D shapes.

To demonstrate the effect of the system visually, the researchers have demonstrated the ultrasound patterns by directing the device at a thin layer of oil so that the depressions in the surface can be seen as spots when lit by a lamp.

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The system generates an invisible 3D shape that can be added to 3D displays to create something that can be seen and felt. The research team have also shown that users can match a picture of a 3D shape to the shape created by the system.

Long, said, “Touchable holograms, immersive virtual reality that you can feel and complex touchable controls in free space, are all possible ways of using this system.

“In the future, people could feel holograms of objects that would not otherwise be touchable, such as feeling the differences between materials in a CT scan or understanding the shapes of artefacts in a museum.”


SOURCE  University of Bristol

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 Medicine  

Scientists have made an substantial breakthrough in the fight against debilitating autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis by revealing how to stop cells attacking healthy body tissue.

Scientists have made an important breakthrough in the fight against debilitating autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis by revealing how to stop cells attacking healthy body tissue.

Rather than the body's immune system destroying its own tissue by mistake, researchers at the University of Bristol have discovered how cells convert from being aggressive to actually protecting against disease.

The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, is published recently in Nature Communications.

"These findings have important implications for the many patients suffering from autoimmune conditions that are currently difficult to treat."

It's hoped this latest insight will lead to the widespread use of antigen-specific immunotherapy as a treatment for many autoimmune disorders, including multiple sclerosis (MS), type 1 diabetes, Graves' disease and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).

MS alone affects around 2.5 million people worldwide.

Scientists were able to selectively target the cells that cause autoimmune disease by dampening down their aggression against the body's own tissues while converting them into cells capable of protecting against disease.

This type of conversion has been previously applied to allergies, known as 'allergic desensitisation', but its application to autoimmune diseases has only been appreciated recently.

The Bristol group has now revealed how the administration of fragments of the proteins that are normally the target for attack leads to correction of the autoimmune response.

Most importantly, their work reveals that effective treatment is achieved by gradually increasing the dose of antigenic fragment injected.

In order to figure out how this type of immunotherapy works, the scientists delved inside the immune cells themselves to see which genes and proteins were turned on or off by the treatment.

They found changes in gene expression that help explain how effective treatment leads to conversion of aggressor into protector cells. The outcome is to reinstate self-tolerance whereby an individual's immune system ignores its own tissues while remaining fully armed to protect against infection.

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In the image above aggressor cells, which have the potential to cause autoimmunity, are targeted by treatment, causing conversion of these cells to protector cells. Gene expression changes gradually at each stage of treatment, as illustrated by the color changes in this series of heat maps.

By specifically targeting the cells at fault, this immunotherapeutic approach avoids the need for the immune suppressive drugs associated with unacceptable side effects such as infections, development of tumours and disruption of natural regulatory mechanisms.

Professor David Wraith, who led the research, said: "Insight into the molecular basis of antigen-specific immunotherapy opens up exciting new opportunities to enhance the selectivity of the approach while providing valuable markers with which to measure effective treatment. These findings have important implications for the many patients suffering from autoimmune conditions that are currently difficult to treat."

This treatment approach, which could improve the lives of millions of people worldwide, is currently undergoing clinical development through biotechnology company Apitope, a spin-out from the University of Bristol.



SOURCE  University of Bristol

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 Telecommunications  

Gigabit wireless communications could radically enhance the wireless capabilities of future mobile phones and tablets.  Two new research papers demonstrate what some of the implications of this may be.

T

he demand for data access by mobile users is growing exponentially every year and is predicted to continue into the foreseeable future.  This is pushing service providers to deploy denser networks. Also, since the frequency bands used by 3G and 4G services are close to their capacity limits, there is considerable interest in the use of millimetre wave frequencies for 5G cellular networks.

Gigabit wireless data capacities are 100x better than those achieved with current Wi-Fi technologies.

Now, two research papers, led by Andrew Nix, Professor of Wireless Communication Systems and Dr Simon Armour, Senior Lecturer in Software Radio, from the Bristol University’s Communication Systems and Networks research group in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, could have significant implications for the future of mobile devices.

The millimetre-wave band (58-63GHz) is seen as a perfect candidate for short-range gigabit wireless communications.  These networks are envisaged to satisfy the demands of future data-rate hungry applications but few studies have analysed the potential of frequency reuse at 60GHz.

The first paper, "Polarimetric filtering for an enhanced multi-user 60GHz WPAN system," on gigabit wireless communications could radically enhance the wireless capabilities of future mobile phones and tablets.  The research looked at enhanced technologies and algorithms to increase the data capacity and densification of short range wireless networks.

The work showed that polarimetric filtering can enable a higher density of active data links. Each millimeter wave link is capable of supporting user rates of up to 7Gbps, with Bristol’s research showing that four simultaneous links could be active in a single room. These data capacities are 100x better than those achieved with current Wi-Fi technologies.

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Djamal Berraki, a PhD student working on the gigabit wireless communications project, has produced a short video to demonstrate the capabilities of the simulator. The video below shows output from the University of Bristol's IEEE 802.11ad (WiGig) simulator. The clip shows the performance of the researchers' adaptive codebook beamforming algorithms in the presence of five moving people.

The second paper, "Application of compressive sensing in sparse spatial channel recovery for beamforming in mmWave outdoor systems," considered beamforming as a solution to provide multi-gigabit connections between the 4G and 5G cellular base stations and the core network. The work also supported direct connections to the users.  Here beamforming is used to focus the communication waveforms onto specific mobile phones and tablets.

At present it is common for the data rates in a cellular network to be limited by the link to the core network (known as backhaul). The research proposed an efficient adaptive beamforming algorithm to extend the range and data rate while also reducing interference. The paper used compressive sensing to significantly reduce the amount of control data needed to adapt the network to temporal and spatial changes in the channel.

Nix said: “Both research papers represent an important contribution in the quest to address the ever increasing user demand for higher data rates and capacities. We are fast running out of radio spectrum in the lower frequency bands where cellular and Wi-Fi current operation. As a result we need to exploit high frequencies in future products.”





SOURCE  University of Bristol

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 Quantum Computer  

Researchers have made an important advance towards a quantum computer by shrinking down key components and integrating them onto a silicon microchip.

An international research group of scientists and engineers led by the University of Bristol, UK, has made an important advance towards a quantum computer by shrinking down key components and integrating them onto a silicon microchip.

Scientists and engineers from an international collaboration led by Dr Mark Thompson, for the first time, generated and manipulated single particles of light (photons) on a silicon chip – a major step forward in the race to build a quantum computer.

Quantum computers and quantum technologies in general are widely anticipated as the next major technology advancement, and are poised to replace conventional information and computing devices in applications ranging from ultra-secure communications and high-precision sensing to immensely powerful computers. Quantum computers themselves will likely lead to breakthroughs in the design of new materials and in the discovery of new medical drugs.

Still in their infancy, quantum technologies are making rapid process, and a revolutionary new approach pioneered by the University of Bristol is exploiting state-of-the-art engineering processes and principles to make leaps and bounds in a field previously dominated by scientists.

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Featuring on the front cover of Nature Photonics, this latest advancement is one of the important pieces in the jigsaw needed in order to realize a quantum computer. While previous attempts have required external light sources to generate the photons, this new chip integrates components that can generate photons inside the chip.

“We were surprised by how well the integrated sources performed together,” admits Joshua Silverstone, lead author of the paper. “They produced high-quality identical photons in a reproducible way, confirming that we could one day manufacture a silicon chip with hundreds of similar sources on it, all working together. This could eventually lead to an optical quantum computer capable of performing enormously complex calculations.”

Group leader Thompson explained: “Single-photon detectors, sources and circuits have all been developed separately in silicon but putting them all together and integrating them on a chip is a huge challenge. Our device is the most functionally complex photonic quantum circuit to date, and was fabricated by Toshiba using exactly the same manufacturing techniques used to make conventional electronic devices. We can generate and manipulate quantum entanglement all within a single mm-sized micro-chip.”

The group, which, includes researchers from Toshiba Corporation (Japan), Stanford University (US), University of Glasgow (UK) and TU Delft (The Netherlands), now plans to integrate the remaining necessary components onto a chip, and show that large-scale quantum devices using photons are possible.

“Our group has been making steady progress towards a functioning quantum computer over the last five years,” said Thompson. “We hope to have within the next couple of years, photon-based devices complex enough to rival modern computing hardware for highly-specialised tasks.”

However, these are just the first steps. To realize useful quantum machines will required a new breed of engineering – quantum engineers, individuals capable of understanding the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and applying this knowledge to real world problems.


SOURCE  Bristol University

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 Computer Interfaces  

Prototype 'ultrahaptic' technology developed at the University of Bristol allows users to feel when they control their computers with mid-air hand movements.

Researchers at the University of Bristol have demonstrated a mid-air tactile feedback prototype system that allows people to interact with computer interfaces by touching invisible fields in the air above them while performing gestures.

UltraHaptics allows people interacting with a screen to feel what is displayed and also receive invisible information before touching it.

The technology works through the use of acoustic radiation force, projected through ultrasonic transducers. These emit very high frequency sound waves which when they meet mid-air, create a sensation on a person's skin.

By combining several waves, the researchers were able to create multiple points of tactile feedback with different properties that can be distinguished by users.

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One of the researchers working on the UltraHaptics project, PhD student Tom Carter, said current multi-touch systems with integrated interactive surfaces allow users to use them with their bare hands, but people cannot feel what is on the screen.

The researchers aimed to build in haptic feedback into existing interactive surfaces without sacrificing their ease of use and accessibility.

"To achieve this, we have designed a system with an ultrasound transducer array positioned beneath an acoustically transparent display," Carter said.  The team also used a Leap Motion sensor to capture the user's hand motions and position.

"This arrangement allows the projection of focused ultrasound through the interactive surface and directly onto the users' bare hands. By creating multiple simultaneous feedback points, and giving them individual tactile properties, users can receive localized feedback associated to their actions."



SOURCE  The Guardian

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