817 research outputs found
A Review of Smart Materials in Tactile Actuators for Information Delivery
As the largest organ in the human body, the skin provides the important
sensory channel for humans to receive external stimulations based on touch. By
the information perceived through touch, people can feel and guess the
properties of objects, like weight, temperature, textures, and motion, etc. In
fact, those properties are nerve stimuli to our brain received by different
kinds of receptors in the skin. Mechanical, electrical, and thermal stimuli can
stimulate these receptors and cause different information to be conveyed
through the nerves. Technologies for actuators to provide mechanical,
electrical or thermal stimuli have been developed. These include static or
vibrational actuation, electrostatic stimulation, focused ultrasound, and more.
Smart materials, such as piezoelectric materials, carbon nanotubes, and shape
memory alloys, play important roles in providing actuation for tactile
sensation. This paper aims to review the background biological knowledge of
human tactile sensing, to give an understanding of how we sense and interact
with the world through the sense of touch, as well as the conventional and
state-of-the-art technologies of tactile actuators for tactile feedback
delivery
Analysis of Product Architectures of Pin Array Technologies for Tactile Displays
Refreshable tactile displays based on pin array technologies have a significant impact on the education of children with visual impairments, but they are prohibitively expensive. To better understand their design and the reason for the high cost, we created a database and analyzed the product architectures of 67 unique pin array technologies from literature and patents. We qualitatively coded their functional elements and analyzed the physical parts that execute the functions. Our findings highlight that pin array surfaces aim to achieve three key functions, i.e., raise and lower pins, lock pins, and create a large array. We also contribute a concise morphological chart that organises the various mechanisms for these three functions. Based on this, we discuss the reasons for the high cost and complexity of these surface haptic technologies and infer why larger displays and more affordable devices are not available. Our findings can be used to design new mechanisms for more affordable and scalable pin array display systems
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