Breakthrough will make haptic touch technologies ten times more energy efficient

Touch screens and touch feedback systems and other Haptic technologies are power-hungry. To create the virtual sensation of touch, motion generators called piezoelectric actuators are required, and those tiny components drain batteries fast. For the haptic revolution to become a reality, power-management semiconductors need to be far more efficient.

A new architecture can reduce power by an order of magnitude from what is out there now. This technology has the potential to change the way people interact with their electronic devices and with each other remotely.

Simon Chaput put his doctoral studies at Harvard on hold in 2017 and returned to his native Canada to launch his company, Boréas Technologies, around this innovation, with a license from Harvard. Boréas is based in Bromont, Quebec, an hour’s drive from Montreal. That may seem an unlikely locale for the next hot thing, but Chaput is confident that his company has the makings of a game-changer.

They are working on the first prototypes. Chaput expects to ship products within a year, and his company will be demonstrating the first development kit for the technology at the IEEE Haptics Symposium this month in San Francisco.