“To touch is to give life,” said Michelangelo. Though voiced in Renaissance Italy, the idea still resonates today. Across industry, traditional controls are being replaced by digital interfaces, removing the tactile cues that once guided human action.
In demanding environments this shift affects performance, safety and operator confidence. Here, Ross Turnbull, director of business development at ASIC, Swindon Silicon Systems, explains how custom IC-powered haptics are restoring touch to modern human-machine interfaces.
In the earliest industrial machines, operators controlled equipment using physical levers, knobs, buttons and switches. These were the first human-machine interfaces (HMIs), serving as a direct bridge between humans and machines that enabled users to control the process and adjust in real time.
Over several decades, these mechanical controls have been replaced by digital control panels and touch screens, which provide flexible layouts and programmable functionality but eliminate the physical feedback that operators used to receive.
Because there is no physical feedback, the operator must respond only to visual or auditory inputs, which is difficult on a noisy factory floor environment or when operating through thick gloves. This lack of feedback creates a major problem for fully digital HMI designers: how can they maintain intuitive, responsive and safe human-machine interaction?
Restoring the sense of touch with haptics
Haptic technology allows digital systems to recreate physical sensations. It generates tactile responses that signal when an input has been recognised or when a machine has changed state. These effects range from a sharp click to nuanced pulses or vibrations that guide user behaviour without requiring constant visual attention. Haptics fill a critical gap in industrial HMIs by adding a physical layer of communication back into screens that would otherwise feel flat and disconnected.
In pharmaceutical, energy and packaging operations, haptics prevent input errors in high-value or safety-critical processes. Gloved operators may miss capacitive touchscreen presses, but high-fidelity haptic actuators create distinct localised clicks, reducing errors and speeding task execution in noisy or glove-heavy environments.
How haptic feedback is used in industry
Industrial operations span many different use cases for haptics. In process control panels where operators must enter set points or sequences rapidly, tactile feedback helps distinguish successful entries from accidental touches. In safety critical applications like chemical dosing or pressure changes, a specific vibration or pulse can provide an additional layer of confirmation that a command has been received, working alongside visual and procedural safety checks.
Teleoperation of heavy machinery or robotics from a distance is also made easier. Force feedback can be transmitted to the operator, simulating actual physical resistance and increasing accuracy in tasks such as gripping, drilling or adjusting tooling from a distance. The use of force feedback in these teleoperation systems increases operator awareness and decreases errors and reaction time because the information is conveyed in a more intuitive, nonvisual manner.
In robotics and assembly applications, force feedback enhances quality control and operator interaction. Tactile sensors measure the amount of force applied or the presence of surface irregularities, conveying this information in feedback that allows for real-time adjustment. Force feedback can also be used for smoother robot movement, safe human interaction and more accurate manipulation of fragile parts.
Why custom ICs matter
The challenge of providing reliable and expressive haptic feedback in industrial applications is complex. It involves the precise generation of waveforms with accurate timing, amplitude and frequency, as well as the ability to function in real time and withstand environmental factors such as temperature changes, noise and continuous operation. Off-the-shelf components are not suited for such applications. Discrete chips require breaking down complex operations into several components, leading to increased latency and difficulties in synchronising actuator drivers, signal conditioning and control logic.
Application specific integrated circuits (ASICs) are a custom solution to this problem. These chips combine waveform generation, signal conditioning, actuator control and power management on a single chip of silicon. By doing so, they remove the latency and synchronisation problems that occur when multiple chips have to communicate with each other. This makes it possible to provide haptic signals with millisecond-level accuracy, keeping amplitude, frequency and pulse shape under tight control to provide natural tactile feedback.
ASICs also enable advanced on-chip functions such as waveform-shaping algorithms, closed-loop feedback and real-time compensation for actuator and environmental variations. This enables dynamic adjustments of the tactile output due to temperature changes or electrical interference without affecting performance.
Immediate operational benefits
For operators, the benefits of ASIC-powered haptics are significant. Consoles can confirm inputs through touch alone, reducing cognitive load and allowing users to keep attention where it matters most. Tactile cues improve reaction times and enable more precise, confident operation. Integrated ASIC solutions also deliver consistent performance in extreme conditions of heat, vibration and electrical noise typical of industrial environments. They help bridge the gap between human intent and machine response, giving digital interfaces a sense of touch that feels natural and immediate.
Tactile cues enhance safety by letting operators confirm actions without shifting focus, while workers feel more connected to machines, improving performance and reducing stress.
For example, retrofitting haptic feedback to industrial HMIs at a major process plant would involve bonding piezoelectric actuators beneath the touchscreen and integrating a dedicated haptic driver IC into the main control board. When operators pressed a virtual numeric keypad, the system would generate a precise click sensation beneath their finger, even through protective gloves. After months of use, the plant would likely observe reduced input errors and faster task completion and operators would feel more “connected” to the machine and less stressed about confirmation checks.
As automation and digitisation continue to expand across industry, the role of haptic feedback is set to grow. With ASICs providing the precision, reliability and compact integration required for real-world industrial use, haptics can be a defining feature of next-generation HMIs. By restoring a sense of touch these systems help operators interact with machines intuitively, safely and efficiently, making digital interfaces feel less like mediators and more like extensions of human capabilities.
Author biography:
Dr Ross Turnbull is the Director of Business Development and Product Engineering at Swindon Silicon Systems, a leader in the design and supply of mixed-signal ASICs for industrial and automotive markets. He is an experienced engineer with a strong background in semiconductors, skilled in Circuit Design, Electronics, Matlab, Semiconductors, and Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs).
