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Haption

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Haption
Information
Industry Haptics, force feedback, robotics
Founded 2001
Headquarters Soulgé-sur-Ouette (near Laval), France
Notable Personnel Jérôme Perret (CEO in 2021)
Products Virtuose 6D, Virtuose 6D TAO, Desktop 6D, Desktop 3D, Virtuose 3D, Scale1, TREX, IPSI
Website https://www.haption.com


Haption is a French company that designs, manufactures and sells force feedback devices and the software that drives them. It was founded in 2001 as a spin-off of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), and its factory and headquarters are near Laval, in Mayenne.[1][2] Its best-known products are the Virtuose arms, grounded haptic interfaces that track the user's hand in six degrees of freedom; the 6D models apply forces and torques on all six, the 3D models on the three translations only.[2][3]

Haption's devices are used with virtual reality systems, CAD software and robots. The company has described its main markets as transport (automotive and aeronautics), the nuclear industry, academic research and medical devices.[4] Typical uses are checking assembly and maintenance operations on digital mock-ups, haptic teleoperation of robots in nuclear facilities, and medical training.[1][4]

Reviewed 13 October 2026. Founding date, legal form, seat and headcount band (French register), CEA and CEA List origin (CEA Tech, CORDIS, Voices of VR), offices and memberships, 2007 datasheet and 2018 archived specs, IPSI, current product and TREX pages, the Assembly Automation paper, the 2021 HaptX partnership and the 2025 Laval Virtual interview, each against its cited source. About review dates.

History

The French company register records Haption (SIREN 439218801) as created on 18 September 2001. It is a société par actions simplifiée (SAS) with its registered office at Soulgé-sur-Ouette in Mayenne, and its 2024 headcount fell in the 20 to 49 employee band.[5] CEA Tech describes the company as "the culmination of 30 years of force feedback research at the CEA". Haption has licensed several patents from the CEA List institute and works with it on industrial applications.[1] A CORDIS summary of the European MUVII project, in which CEA List built a wearable haptic device with two degrees of freedom, also calls Haption "a spin-off company of CEA LIST".[6]

In a 2015 interview with the Voices of VR podcast, Haption sales engineer Quentin Parent said the Virtuose arm was first released in 2004.[7] Haption's website says it has worked with Dassault Systèmes since 2004.[3] A 2007 Haption datasheet presented the Virtuose 6D35-45 as a six-degrees-of-freedom haptic device "specifically designed for work in Virtual Reality environments", with plug-ins for software including Vortex, Havok, ODE, Virtools and CATIA V5.[8]

By 2016 the company had a subsidiary in Germany, and exports made up 35 percent of its annual revenue.[1] A 2013 paper in the journal Assembly Automation on interactive assembly simulation with haptic feedback lists its first author, Jérôme Perret, at Haption GmbH in Aachen.[9] The company website now lists sales offices in Aachen (Germany), Preston (United Kingdom) and Hope, Rhode Island (United States), along with partners and resellers in other countries.[2]

In October 2021 HaptX announced a multi-year, exclusive partnership with Haption. Under the deal Haption stopped producing its own HGlove haptic gloves and began selling HaptX Gloves to its customers, and the companies said the combined technology would serve professionals in training and simulation, industrial design and robotics. Perret, then Haption's CEO, said the company had "developed advanced force feedback systems for over 20 years".[10] At Laval Virtual 2025 the company presented an updated version of its immersive robotics solution.[4]

Products

Hardware

In 2018 Haption's website listed ten hardware products: the small-workspace Virtuose 6D Desktop and Virtuose 3D Desktop, the large-workspace Virtuose 6D and Virtuose 3D, the Scale1 and Inca for very large workspaces, the Virtuose 6D TAO and MAT 6D master arms for teleoperation, and the Able and HGlove exoskeletons.[11] The current range is built around the Virtuose 6D family (the TAO and the High Force TAO), the Desktop 6D and Desktop 3D, the Virtuose 3D, and the Scale1 motorized carrier.[12][3]

The Desktop 6D has force feedback on all three translations and all three rotations. The Desktop 3D measures all six degrees of freedom but applies force feedback only to the translations.[13] The Virtuose 6D TAO is an adaptation of the Virtuose 6D for robotics and teleoperation. It adds an extra button box and a robotic handle and uses the EtherCAT protocol.[14] According to Haption, the High Force version triples the continuous force of the standard version in the same form factor. The Scale1 carrier adds one to three motorized degrees of freedom, carries one or two Virtuose 6D arms and can be sized to a room, a screen or a CAVE.[3]

Model Peak force (translation) Continuous force (translation) Peak torque Continuous torque Source
Virtuose 6D35-45 (2007) 35 N 10 N 3 Nm 1 Nm [8]
Virtuose 6D (2018) 35 N 9.5 N 3.1 N.m 1 N.m [15]
Virtuose 6D High Force (2018) 70 N 30 N 5 N.m 1.4 N.m [15]
Virtuose 6D TAO (2018) 42 N 12 N 5 N.m 1.4 N.m [14]

The 2007 datasheet gave the Virtuose 6D35-45 arm segments of 450 mm and a workspace large enough to contain a 45 cm cube, with a position resolution of 6x10-3 mm.[8] In the 2015 Voices of VR interview, Parent gave prices of 30,000 euros for the desktop model and 85,000 euros for the large arm.[7]

Software

All Virtuose and Desktop models use the same low-level API. Haption supplies native C and C++ drivers and drivers for ROS, ROS2 and CHAI3D on Windows and Linux. Integration with Unity and Unreal Engine is available through partners, and Haption provides plug-ins for Dassault Systèmes' SOLIDWORKS, CATIA, DELMIA and 3DEXPERIENCE.[3][13]

IPSI (Interactive Physics Simulation Interface) is a rigid-body physics library with force feedback that Haption developed with CEA List. It represents objects as voxels, which lets it simulate contact between large, non-convex CAD models in real time. IPSI uses a client/server design: the server runs collision detection and motion simulation modules from CEA List and Boeing/Phantom Works' Voxmap PointShell library, while the client only updates the graphics. In 2018 it was the basis of Haption's plug-ins for CATIA, DELMIA, SOLIDWORKS, 3DEXPERIENCE, Siemens Tecnomatix Process Simulate and Classic Jack.[16]

TREX (TeleRobotics EXtender) is a no-code teleoperation controller that lets an operator drive an industrial robot with a Virtuose 6D TAO or HF TAO and feel the robot's dynamics and the forces it applies. Haption lists compatible robot arms from Universal Robots, KUKA, FANUC, ABB, Doosan, Franka, Kinova, Stäubli, Kawasaki, Mecademic and others, and the software has an OPC-UA interface.[17]

XR work

Haption's arms give grounded haptic feedback in virtual environments: the user holds a handle and feels forces such as the weight of heavy virtual objects. This lets engineers handle CAD parts at full scale for ergonomic, accessibility and assembly studies.[8][9] In the 2015 Voices of VR interview, Parent said that about half of the arm's use was industrial (aerospace, automotive and nuclear) and half was research, including medical applications. He named Airbus, PSA and Jaguar as customers and said the devices could be used in Unity through MiddleVR. Parent also said Haption was not targeting the consumer market and saw gloves with force feedback on each finger as a direction to head towards.[7] CEA Tech listed PSA, Airbus and Lockheed Martin as industrial users of the system for assembly, disassembly and maintenance simulation without physical prototypes.[1]

In nuclear plants the devices help operators remote-control robots in hot zones, and CEA Tech reported in 2016 that Haption had begun developing simulators for surgical training.[1] Haption is a founding member of EuroXR (the European Association for eXtended Reality). It is also a member of euRobotics, the French association AFXR and the Laval Virtual Reality Capital cluster.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 "HAPTION - Commercial-grade force feedback system". CEA Tech. CEA. 2016-04-15. https://www.cea.fr/cea-tech/english/Pages/success-stories/haption.aspx. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 "About Haption". Haption. https://www.haption.com/abouthaption. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 "Virtuose 6D". Haption. https://www.haption.com/product/virtuose6d. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 Léa Paule (2025-03-25). "Elevating human-machine collaboration: Haption leads the way". Laval Virtual. https://blog.laval-virtual.com/en/haption-industry-robotics-solutions/. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  5. ↑ "HAPTION (SIREN 439218801)". API Recherche d'entreprises. French government. https://recherche-entreprises.api.gouv.fr/search?q=439218801. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  6. ↑ "Haptic device brings virtual worlds to life". CORDIS. European Commission. https://cordis.europa.eu/article/id/82417-haptic-device-brings-virtual-worlds-to-life. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 Kent Bye (2015-09-09). "#208: Haption: Force-Feedback Haptic Devices for Industrial VR Applications". Voices of VR. https://voicesofvr.com/?p=1718. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 "Virtuose 6D35-45 (datasheet)". Haption. https://web.archive.org/web/20070809010318/http://www.haption.com/eng/produits/Virtuose6D35-45-EN.pdf. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Jérôme Perret, Christoph Kneschke, Judy Vance, Georges Dumont (2013-07-26). "Interactive assembly simulation with haptic feedback". Assembly Automation, vol. 33, no. 3, pp. 214-220. Emerald. https://doi.org/10.1108/AA-03-2013-017. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  10. ↑ Sam Sprigg (2021-10-27). "HaptX announces partnership with Haption to integrate their haptic technologies". Auganix. https://www.auganix.org/?p=11036. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  11. ↑ "About us - HAPTION SA". Haption. https://web.archive.org/web/20181206201949/https://www.haption.com/en/company-en.html. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  12. ↑ "Haption". Haption. https://www.haption.com/home. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 "Desktop 6D & 3D". Haption. https://www.haption.com/product/desktop6d. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 "Virtuose 6D TAO". Haption. https://web.archive.org/web/20181206215415/https://www.haption.com/en/products-en/virtuose-6d-tao-en.html. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Virtuose 6D". Haption. https://web.archive.org/web/20181206200003/https://www.haption.com/en/products-en/virtuose-6d-en.html. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  16. ↑ "IPSI SDK". Haption. https://web.archive.org/web/20181206195224/https://www.haption.com/en/software-en/ipsi-en.html. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
  17. ↑ "TREX". Haption. https://www.haption.com/solution/trex. Retrieved 2026-10-13.
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