Proceedings Article | 26 March 1993
Proc. SPIE. 1833, Telemanipulator Technology
KEYWORDS: Actuators, Human subjects, Surgery, Spatial frequencies, Sensors, Skin, Signal processing, Micromachining, Chemical elements, Protactinium
In implementing tactile feedback, we are considering the problems of tactile transduction, signal processing, and tactile stimulation. While some of the problems--e.g. sensing--have been addressed in the past, tactile simulation or 'tactile display,' as an informational medium is yet at a very early stage of development. Our work has focused on the design of a 5 X 5 tactile display, and the fabrication problems surrounding high spatio-temporal resolution. Using pneumatic actuators and a mix of conventional and micromachining techniques, we have prototyped and characterized the display, and created a linked sensor-display system. The display was characterized in the usual manner of a linear system and the ability of human subjects to discriminate patterns, forces, and displacements was measured. The display was found to have a maximum force output of 340 milliNewton at each element, force resolution of 4.4 bits, and a frequency response of 7 Hz. Human subjects were able to recognize simple geometric patterns presented on the display, discriminant forces with 3.3 bits resolution, and sense displacements of 0.1 mm (5% of the array spacing).
