DESIGN OF WEARABLE RINGS FOR VIBRATORY HAPTIC FEEDBACK

In tele-operation, the haptic technology provides users with the sense of touch with which they can remotely control the slave side more effectively. Delivering the force reaction in the slave side to the user in the master side becomes a challenging component in this framework, because this force transfer requires reliable sensing, stable force display, and associated signal processing. Vibrations can be used in haptic devices where the direct force sensing and transfer are difficult. In this research, we develop a theoretic design scheme for a small-size wearable ring which vibrates to give the haptic feedback to the user. This device uses the resonant vibration of a permanent magnet in the vibrating electromagnetic field. A magnet and soft material support form a mass-spring-damper system. This paper concerns the design problem to optimize the vibration response of this mass-spring-damper system. We develop a design method for the geometric shapes of the soft material to achieve maximum vibration performance. We accomplish the optimization using force transmissibility, and found that it is a better objective function than displacement transmissibility.