Haptic technology tactual perception. The sense of touch may be classified as passive and active, and the term "haptic" is often associated with active touch to communicate or recognize objects. Haptic technology has made it possible to investigate how the human sense of touch works by allowing the creation of controlled haptic virtual objects. The word "haptic", from the ("haptikos"), means "pertaining to the sense of touch" and comes from the Greek verb ("haptesthai)", meaning "to contact" or "to touch". According to Robert Lee this sensation is also referred to as 3D touch One of the earliest applications of haptic technology was
Haptic technology engineers in London as part of The Shadow Project, now known as the Shadow Robot Company, an ongoing research and development program whose goal is to complete the first convincing artificial humanoid. An early prototype can be seen in NASA's collection of humanoid robots, or robonauts. The Shadow Hand has haptic sensors embedded in every joint and finger pad, which relay information to a central computer for processing and analysis. Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania and Bielefeld University in Germany found The Shadow Hand to be an invaluable tool in advancing the understanding of haptic awareness, and in 2006 they