The Cutting Edge: Computing / Technology / Innovation : PLOWSHARES : Firm Seeks Vested Interest in Video Games

Aura Systems Inc. is a little El Segundo firm that’s trying to convert from “Star Wars” to Sega.

The company, formed in 1987 by several former Hughes Aircraft Co. engineers, started out developing electromagnetic devices for the operation of surveillance gear under the Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars.”

Now Aura is aiming for the consumer video game market. In September, it plans to start selling a vest that players wear to “feel” the kicks, tackles, gunshots, bomb explosions and laser blasts that occur on their game screens.

The $99 adjustable vest weighs four pounds, is made of plastic with a nylon shoulder harness and can be plugged into the audio output of any game system, Aura says. The accessory also comes with a set of controls that allows players to adjust the intensity of sounds they want to feel and to filter out those they don’t.

How does it work? As an action appears on the screen--a boxer’s right hook to his opponent, for instance--its sound waves are fed into the vest. Aura’s patented actuator, a device that uses electronic signals to create mechanical movements, translates the sound waves into vibrations that resonate throughout the vest.

Don’t stereo speakers vibrate when the stereo’s volume is cranked up? Of course. But those vibrations are simply caused by air moving from the speakers’ components--air movement that’s widely dispersed and created only at high volume, said Harry Kurtzman, Aura’s chief executive.

Aura’s vest, by contrast, delivers its video game vibrations regardless of the volume, because the vibes are created by the moving actuator in the vest, not moving air. “Because of that, you can control the intensity and locality of the vibration,” Kurtzman said.

Aura, which has been a target lately of bearish investors who are speculating that the company’s prospects won’t materialize, nonetheless hopes to find other commercial uses for its actuator technology.

Among them: converting mechanical valve systems in car and truck engines to electrical systems, in which Aura’s computer-driven actuators control the valves. That would eliminate the engine’s cam shaft, mechanical valve lifters and other parts, making the engines more efficient and less polluting, Aura says.