Best Student Paper Award at EuroHaptics 2026
Research, Awards |
The conference’s Paper Award Committee presented the award for the best paper among all submissions with student or doctoral candidates as first authors. The evaluation considered both the scientific quality of the paper and its presentation at the conference. First author Lars Nockenberg is a PhD candidate at the TUM Chair of Media Technology headed by Professor Eckehard Steinbach, who is one of the paper’s co-authors.
New Perceptual Model for Vibrotactile Signals
The award-winning work focuses on the development of a new model for more efficient compression of vibrotactile signals, such as those used in haptic gloves to realistically reproduce touch and vibrations. In psychophysical experiments, the research team investigated how vibrations at different locations on the fingers interfere with one another, making them harder to perceive. The results show that both the position of the actuators and the frequency of the signals have a decisive influence on this so-called spatial masking.
Based on these findings, the researchers developed a perception model that enables greater compression of vibrotactile signals without users perceiving a loss in quality. An initial pilot study confirmed the model’s effectiveness. The results could help to transmit vibrotactile information much more efficiently in haptic applications such as virtual reality or teleoperation in the future.
International Platform for Haptics Research
The EuroHaptics Conference is one of the world’s leading conferences in the field of haptics and covers topics such as haptic perception, haptic interfaces design, wearable and encouter-type haptics, haptics for virtual reality and extended reality, as well as applications in robotics, healthcare, education and human-computer interaction. Receiving the Best Student Paper Award underscores the high scientific relevance of the work and brings international visibility to the research conducted at the TUM Chair of Media Technology in one of the field’s most important forums.