A micro tactile transceiver for fingertip motion recognition and texture generation

We present a micro tactile information transceiver that recognizes user's fingertip motion (direction/selection) input and generates artificial texture output using frictional-force tunable slider-pad. The proposed micro tactile transceiver offers capacitive detection of human gesture input and simultaneous generation of frictional force and vibration by electrostatic attraction of slider-pad. In the experimental study, we verified the tactile input recognition performance by measuring the capacitance changes for the z-axis (selection) and x-/y-axis (direction) movement, which were 0.146 +/- 0.02 nF/40 mu m and 0.03 +/- 0.02 nF/250 mu m, respectively. We also verified the artificial texture generation performance by measuring frictional force and lateral vibration by controlling the electrostatic force between slider-pad and electrode layer. The frictional force was measured in the range of 32-152 mN under 0-80V DC input voltages, offering the lateral force on skin in the range of 121-580 mN combined with spring force. We applied AC voltage to induce fluctuating frictional force to generate lateral vibration on the skin, and obtained peak-to-peak fluctuation of 128.1 +/- 0.8 mN under 3 Hz/60 V which is a 32% improved value compared to previous approaches. The proposed micro tactile information transceiver is capable of recognizing human gesture information (direction/selection) and generating the artificial texture information. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.