A low-cost highly-portable tactile display based on shape memory alloy micro-actuators
18 Jul 2005-pp 6
TL;DR: A new concept of low-cost, high-resolution, lightweight, compact and highly-portable tactile display based on shape memory alloy (SMA) technology that allows the development of 60 g weight tactile devices of compact dimensions easily carried in the user's hand.
Abstract: This paper presents a new concept of low-cost, high-resolution, lightweight, compact and highly-portable tactile display. The prototype consists of an array of 8 /spl times/ 8 upward/downward independent moveable pins based on shape memory alloy (SMA) technology. Each actuator is capable of developing a 320 mN pull force at 1.5 Hz bandwidth by using simple forced-air convection. The proposed concept allows the development of 60 g weight tactile devices of compact dimensions easily carried in the user's hand. SMA active element, tactile actuator and tactile display are presented and discussed.
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12 Mar 2007
TL;DR: An up-to-date survey of graphical tactile displays is presented, showing that the goal of an efficient low-cost tactile display for visually-impaired people has not yet been reached.
Abstract: This paper presents an up-to-date survey of graphical tactile displays. These devices provide information through the sense of touch. At best, they should display both text and graphics (text may be considered a type of graphic). Graphs made with shapeable sheets result in bulky items awkward to store and transport; their production is expensive and time-consuming and they deteriorate quickly. Research is ongoing for a refreshable tactile display that acts as an output device for a computer or other information source and can present the information in text and graphics. The work in this field has branched into diverse areas, from physiological studies to technological aspects and challenges. Moreover, interest in these devices is now being shown by other fields such as virtual reality, minimally invasive surgery and teleoperation. It is attracting more and more people, research and money. Many proposals have been put forward, several of them succeeding in the task of presenting tactile information. However, most are research prototypes and very expensive to produce commercially. Thus the goal of an efficient low-cost tactile display for visually-impaired people has not yet been reached
143 citations
Cites background from "A low-cost highly-portable tactile ..."
...[70] and [76], [77] report research prototypes based on electrorheological fluids and SMA actuators,...
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...A pair of SMA springs are used in [76] to build a taxel based on the antagonist principle....
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25 Mar 2006
TL;DR: A tactile transducer system that has a compact, yet modular design, appeals to ordinary fabrication methods, and can be assembled and dismantled in a short time for debugging and maintenance is described.
Abstract: We describe a tactile transducer system that has a compact, yet modular design. The tactile transducer comprises a 6 × 10 piezo bimorph actuator array with a spatial resolution of 1.8 × 1.2 millimeter and a wide temporal bandwidth. The blocked force of the individual actuators can be changed (0.15 N, 0.22 N) by adjusting the cantilever mechanics to optimally match skins and/or applications. This tactile transducer is modular, appeals to ordinary fabrication methods, and can be assembled and dismantled in a short time for debugging and maintenance. It weighs 60 g, it is self-contained in a 150 cm3volume and may be interfaced to most computer, provided that two analog outputs and six digital IO lines are available. A pilot test was carried out where subjects were asked to detect a virtual line randomly located on an otherwise smooth virtual surface.
92 citations
Cites background from "A low-cost highly-portable tactile ..."
...Attempts have been made to leverage the benefits of smart actuators (shape memory alloys wires or springs [24, 20], miniature electrostatic actuators [8], electroactive gels [11]), specifically developed technologies (pneumatic bladders [14], miniature electromagnetic solenoids [9]), consumer-oriented modules for the toy industry [21], or remotized miniature DC motors [16]....
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TL;DR: A tactile transducer device that is optimized from biomechanical data and that has a compact, yet modular design that has the ability to deform the glabrous skin maximally during laterotactile stimulation is described.
Abstract: In this paper we describe a tactile transducer device that is optimized from biomechanical data and that has a compact, yet modular design. The tactile transducer comprises a 6 A 10 piezoelectric bimorph actuator array with a spatial resolution of 1.8 mm A 1.2 mm and has a wide temporal bandwidth. The actuator mounting method was improved from a conventional cantilever method to a dual-pinned method, giving the actuator the ability to deform the glabrous skin maximally during laterotactile stimulation. The results were validated by asking subjects to detect tactile features under a wide range of operating conditions. The tactile display device is modular, makes use of ordinary fabrication methods, and can be assembled and dismantled in a short time for debugging and maintenance. It weighs 60 g, it is self-contained in a 150 cm 3 volume and may be interfaced to most computers, provided that two analog outputs and six digital I/O lines are available. Psychophysical experiments were carried out to assess its effectiveness in rendering virtual tactile features.
81 citations
Cites background from "A low-cost highly-portable tactile ..."
..., 1998), (Velazquez et al., 2005), miniature electrostatic actuators (Jungmann and Schlaak, 2002), electroactive gels (Konyo et al....
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...…been made to leverage the benefits of smart actuators such as shape memory alloy wires or springs (Hasser and Weisenberger 1993 Wellman et al. 1998 Velazquez et al. 2005), miniature electrostatic actuators (Jungmann and Schlaak 2002), electroactive gels (Konyo et al. 2000), specifically developed…...
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TL;DR: A novel implementation of conventional actuation principles achieves a compact design with superior performance compared to devices of a similar footprint, demonstrating an excellent combination of tactor spatiotemporal resolution, force, and amplitude.
Abstract: This paper presents the development of a compact tactile display and its integration in teleoperation. The system's operation is based on the display of surface shape to an area of the fingertip through a 4 × 4 array of tactors moving perpendicularly to the skin surface. The tactors are spring loaded and are actuated remotely by dc motors through a flexible tendon transmission. This novel implementation of conventional actuation principles achieves a compact design with superior performance compared to devices of a similar footprint, demonstrating an excellent combination of tactor spatiotemporal resolution, force, and amplitude. The display's ergonomic design and high performance make it suitable for integration on haptic devices for tactile feedback in VR and in Teleoperation. This paper presents the design, control, and performance of the tactile display and of the transmission system. It also demonstrates its integration on an Omega7 force feedback device for the teleoperation of an LWR KUKA manipulator. An experiment is presented where users teleoperated the stylus of the robot in a 3D contour following task with and without tactile feedback. In this experiment, force feedback from the slave is fused with model-based local tactile feedback. Subjects' performances indicate an improvement in teleoperation when both tactile and force feedback are present.
76 citations
Cites background from "A low-cost highly-portable tactile ..."
...Shape displays have been implemented with a multitude of actuation technologies including SMA actuators [24], electromagnetic actuators [25], piezoelectric ultrasonic motors [26], etc....
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18 Mar 2009
TL;DR: A new tactile actuator with a solenoid, a permanent magnet and an elastic spring, which can generate various tactile sensations and a miniature tactile module which separates the elastic springs in the actuators into several layers to minimize the contactor's gap without decreasing the performance of the tactile module.
Abstract: In these days, tactile sensation using a vibration motor is recently receiving attention for immersive interaction with mobile devices. However, the vibration motor is not enough to provide detailed texture or small-scale shape. In order to generate various and exiting tactile sensation, this paper presents a new tactile actuator with a solenoid, a permanent magnet and an elastic spring. This paper also proposes a miniature tactile module with the proposed actuators. On constructing a miniature tactile module, we separate the elastic springs in the actuators into several layers to minimize the contactor's gap without decreasing the performance of the tactile module. We conduct experiments to investigate each contactor's output force and the frequency response of the proposed tactile module. Each contactor can generate enough output force to stimulate human's mechanoreceptors. Moreover, since the contactors are actuated in a wide range of frequency, the proposed tactile module can generate various tactile sensations.
60 citations
Additional excerpts
...presented a pin-array tactile actuating system with an SMA (shape memory alloy) coil and a permanent magnet [5]....
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References
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1,087 citations
"A low-cost highly-portable tactile ..." refers background in this paper
...The TPDT is the minimum distance with which we can identify 2 points given in a simultaneous two-pointcontact [12]....
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24 Apr 2000
TL;DR: This paper describes the fabrication and performance of a one-piece pneumatically-actuated tactile display molded from silicone rubber, which has no chamber leakage and no seal friction.
Abstract: A teletaction system uses a tactile display to present the user with information about texture, local shape, and/or local compliance. Current tactile displays are flat and rigid, and require precise machining and assembly of many parts. This paper describes the fabrication and performance of a one-piece pneumatically-actuated tactile display molded from silicone rubber. Tactor spacing is 2.5 mm with 1 mm diameter tactor elements. Tactile display compliance ensures contact between the finger and tactile display at all times. Unlike previous pneumatic tactile displays, there is no chamber leakage and no seal friction. A psychophysics experiment showed that a synthetic grating on the tactile display was perceived as well as a low-pass-filtered real contact.
214 citations
"A low-cost highly-portable tactile ..." refers background in this paper
...Tactile devices previously developed explore servomotors [3], electromagnetic coils [4], piezoelectric ceramics [5], pneumatics [6], shape memory alloys (SMA) [7], polymer gels [8] and fluids [9] as actuation technologies....
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24 Mar 2002
TL;DR: This paper presents a 6/spl times/6 tactile shape display that uses commercial radio-controlled servomotors to actuate an array of mechanical pins and has a maximum pin deflection of 2 mm along with a resolution of 4 bits.
Abstract: Tactile displays are used to convey small-scale force and shape information to the tip of the finger. In this paper, we present a 6/spl times/6 tactile shape display that uses commercial radio-controlled (RC) servomotors to actuate an array of mechanical pins. The display has a maximum pin deflection of 2 mm along with a resolution of 4 bits. Pin spacing is 2 mm with a pin diameter of 1 mm. The display can accurately represent frequencies up to 25 Hz for small amplitudes and the slew rate is limited at 38 mm/sec for larger amplitudes.
182 citations
"A low-cost highly-portable tactile ..." refers background in this paper
...Tactile devices previously developed explore servomotors [3], electromagnetic coils [4], piezoelectric ceramics [5], pneumatics [6], shape memory alloys (SMA) [7], polymer gels [8] and fluids [9] as actuation technologies....
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01 Jan 2003
TL;DR: In this article, a tactile display system is described which can produce "tac-tile movies", that is, rapid sequences of tactile images refreshed at a rate of 700 Hz.
Abstract: A tactile display system is described which can produce 'tac- tile movies', that is, rapid sequences of tactile images refreshed at a rate of 700 Hz. The display uses an array of one hundred laterally moving skin contactors designed to create a time-varying programmable strain field at the skin surface. The density of the array is of one contactor per millimeter square, resulting in a device with high spatial and temporal resolution. The paper describes the construction method and the drive electronics. It also reports informally on initial test patterns and on the resulting tactile sensations.
162 citations
"A low-cost highly-portable tactile ..." refers background in this paper
...Tactile devices previously developed explore servomotors [3], electromagnetic coils [4], piezoelectric ceramics [5], pneumatics [6], shape memory alloys (SMA) [7], polymer gels [8] and fluids [9] as actuation technologies....
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TL;DR: A sixty-four element tactile array based on shape memory alloy technology is described in this article where resistive feedback is used to give closed loop PI control of the height of each tactel, within a PWM and tactel scanning technique.
110 citations
"A low-cost highly-portable tactile ..." refers background in this paper
...Tactile devices previously developed explore servomotors [3], electromagnetic coils [4], piezoelectric ceramics [5], pneumatics [6], shape memory alloys (SMA) [7], polymer gels [8] and fluids [9] as actuation technologies....
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