Design Procedure and Simulation of a Novel Multi-Modal Tactile Display Device for Biomedical Applications

In these days, a haptic interface, which is a force/tactile display device, is attracting great interest in virtual reality. With regard to this technology, researchers have reported ways to construct virtual environment and development of new devices with a unique mechanism but rarely explored the relationships between human perception and virtual dynamics. This paper suggests that it is necessary to clarify the relationships to provide more realistic force/tactile sensation for users. The main purpose of this study is to evaluate the force sensations displayed by haptic interfaces. This study focused on two haptic illusion phenomena, which are a haptic horizontal-vertical illusion and a size-weight illusion. Results of experiments using the haptic interface verified that such haptic illusions are reproducible in virtual reality. This implies that perceptual experiments can be realized using haptic interfaces, which may have potential to discover new haptic illusions. Further, this paper attempts to study the size-weight illusion by using functions of the haptic interface such as position and force sensing functions and propose a new hypothesis on the size-weight illusion. These results demonstrate that the effectiveness of haptic interfaces for perceptual experiments.

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Configuration of a Novel Sub-Millimeter Resolution Piezoelectric Actuator Based Wearable Tactile Display System for Blind Individuals

Volume 7: 5th International Conference on Micro- and Nanosystems; 8th International Conference on Design and Design Education; 21st Reliability, Stress Analysis, and Failure Prevention Conference ◽

10.1115/detc2011-48842 ◽

2011 ◽

Author(s):

Prakash C. R. J. Naidu ◽

Ramesh Yechangunja ◽

Mandayam A. Srinivasan

Keyword(s):

Piezoelectric Actuators ◽

Body Part ◽

Tactile Display ◽

Significant Feature ◽

Block Type ◽

Display Device ◽

Display System ◽

Potential Applications ◽

Blind Individuals ◽

General Communication

This paper presents the work conducted towards the realization of a novel tactile display system, first using block type piezoelectric actuators and later using cantilever type piezoelectric actuators. The system is particularly useful for blind users to communicate with computers through touch, but also has many potential applications in several other fields such as virtual reality, gaming, and other general communication interfaces for sighted users. Although piezoelectric actuators have been used in the past in electronic Braille and other systems, there is no reported configuration that can achieve sub-millimeter center-to-center resolution in an array of programmable actuation pins that act as interfaces in contact with a human body part such as a finger. This paper reports development of a wearable tactile display device: (a) built of block type actuators and its characterization showing that the perception was not adequate for certain purposes; (b) further, a novel arrangement with considerable improvement in perception wherein- (i) two or more vibrating stimulation pins can be located close to each other at the plane of contact with a finger, and (ii) actuated by means of piezoelectric bending elements arranged in a cantilever configuration partially overlapping each other in multiple planes. A significant feature of the unique configuration reported in this paper is that vibratory stimulation can be achieved at finer spatial resolutions than hitherto achieved.

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