The key to realism in sim racing lies in what you can feel: every bump, slide, and shift in traction. That physical feedback comes from haptic technology, especially in devices like:

• force feedback wheelbases,
• active pedals,
• motion rigs,
• wind simulators,
• belt tensioners, and
• haptic seat systems.

From smartphones to virtual reality and racing simulators, haptics provides important sensory feedback. This article explains what haptics is, the different types, how it is used in various industries, and why it matters in sim racing.

What is haptics technology?

Haptic technology, or haptics, refers to systems that simulate the sense of tactical feeling by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user. It bridges the gap between digital interfaces and physical sensations, making virtual experiences feel more “real.”

Tactile haptic feedback

Surface-level sensations – by touch / on skin (e.g., vibration, texture).

• Mechanical, thermal, electrical, chemical stimulations
• Common in smartphones, touchpads, and game controllers.
• Example: In sim racing, stimulates the skin with vibration motors, and when the sim racing wheel is moving.

Kinaesthetics tactile feedback

Deep physical sensations – human locomotor system (e.g., force, weight, resistance).

• Physical force, body orientation, limb alignment, joint position
• Applies mechanical force to simulate resistance or motion.
• Found in joysticks, robotic arms, and racing wheelbases.
• Example: Applies physical force to sim racing pedals or changes body orientation in the sim rig, such as when seat belts tighten in a racing simulator.

In sim racing, force feedback systems use both kinaesthetic and tactile haptics. These systems use motors to recreate the forces a driver would feel through a steering wheel in a real car.

Simucube ActivePedals generate not just resistance, but dynamic force feedback based on driving conditions — simulating ABS vibration, traction loss, brake lockup, and more.

Example devices with haptic technology

• Smartphones
• Game controllers
• VR gloves
• Sim racing wheelbases (e.g., Simucube – use force feedback)
• Medical simulators (e.g., robotic surgery trainers with force feedback arms)

Why is haptics important in sim racing?

In sim racing, understanding haptics, especially force feedback, is not optional. It’s essential.

A force feedback wheelbase is a perfect example of kinaesthetic haptics in action.  When a virtual car loses traction or hits a bump, the wheel physically responds, allowing the driver to feel the car’s behaviour without relying only on visuals or sound.

This tactile information is crucial for performance and realism. It helps racers understand changes in grip, weight transfer, and sensations that visuals alone cannot fully capture.

Haptics make you understand the car

In real racing, your body reacts to what the car is doing — you feel the loss of grip, understeer, or the road surface through the wheel. Haptics brings those sensations to your hands, helping you build muscle memory and refine your driving instinct.

With clear and consistent feedback, drivers can:

• React faster to grip changes
• Brake more consistently
• Learn car behaviour more naturally

Haptic feedback also reduces reliance on visual cues, making the experience more immersive and intuitive.

How devices communicate through haptics

Haptics is all about two-way communication between a user and a system through touch and force. This interaction has a direction — how signals move between the user and the device.

Three types of haptic devices:

1. Haptic Device
These are devices used only for input, with no feedback from the simulated system. Examples include a mouse, keyboard, or a game controller without vibration.

2. Haptic Display
These are devices that only produce feedback but do not receive input signals from the user. Examples include haptic seat systems, wind simulators, motion rigs, and other hardware that provide physical sensations without direct user control.

3. Haptic Interface
These are hardware that combine the previous two, both producing feedback and recording the user’s inputs, such as steering wheels, active pedals, and wheelbases.

How interaction direction works

• From user to device: Your hands or body provide input — like turning a wheel or pressing a pedal. The haptic device senses this movement or pressure through the interface.
• From device to user: Based on simulation data, the device generates forces, vibrations, or resistance (via the haptic display) that your skin and muscles feel.

This two-way flow creates a realistic touch experience, where the system responds to your actions and sends physical feedback back to you.

Generating a Force Feedback signal

Sim racing hardware uses actuators, usually electric motors, to generate the forces you feel through the wheel or pedals. These actuators are driven by telemetry data from the simulation software, which includes parameters like speed, torque, tire load, and road surface.

The wheelbase interprets that data and applies matching forces to your hands, allowing you to feel the car react in real time. This interaction is what makes a simulator feel “alive” and responsive, rather than like a video game.

However, in the realm of sim racing, haptics are always simulated. When discussing haptics in general, it’s useful to distinguish between two conceptual types: virtual haptics and telepresence (or teleoperation).

Virtual haptics occur entirely within simulated environments. There is no real object or system — everything is created and felt through software and actuators.

Telepresence haptics, by contrast, are used when controlling or interacting with a remote or physical system in real time, often seen in medical robotics or aerospace applications.

• Virtual haptics: Simulates touch using only digital models. This is what all sim racing hardware uses.
• Telepresencehaptics: Involves controlling a remote or real-world device and receiving feedback from it (used in robotics and medical fields). Similar hardware currently used in sim racing could be applied in drive-by-wire systems, either fully remote or inside the car when the steering wheel isn’t physically connected to the wheels.

Haptics transparency: connecting simulation physics to driver perception

A key concept in advanced haptics is haptic transparency — the degree to which the system allows the user to feel the simulated environment without loss of realism. In other words, a haptically transparent system transmits forces from the virtual world to the user with minimal interference.

In sim racing, this means that the wheelbase gives you clean, unfiltered feedback that reflects what the car is actually doing.

• Poor transparency can result in delayed or overly damped responses, making the car feel unresponsive or untrustworthy.
• High transparency, gives you a direct connection to the simulated physics, allowing for quicker reactions, greater immersion, and more consistent driving.

Haptic technology is what turns a racing simulator into a tool for real improvement. With these insights into haptics, the next time you feel something in your racing simulator, can you now spot how haptics translate the car’s behaviour and assess how effectively it delivers realistic feedback?

Learn more about haptics in ActivePedal on our blog What is an “active pedal” in sim racing? | Blog | Simucube

Source: Engineering Haptic Devices | SpringerLink