An application of SAW to a tactile display in virtual reality

SAW has great potential for a 'tactile display' in virtual reality which provides a human virtually with varied tactile sensation of roughness, textures, and friction. From an analysis of a sliding motion of a finger on a rough surface, it is shown that the parameters of the grain are directly related to a frequency of a stick-slip vibration of friction. Thus, it is necessary for the tactile display to create dispersed sources of shear stress which can be modulated temporally with the stick-slip frequency. In our tactile display, we explore a LiNbO/sub 3/ 128/spl deg/ Y-cut substrate with a 'slider' which has around 100 steel balls with the diameter of 800[/spl mu/m] on a thin tape. Because friction between the substrate and the slider is reduced by generating SAW on the substrate, a virtual stick-slip can be created by a burst standing SAW with the carrier frequency of 15[MHz]. It is confirmed that the variable grain can be represented by controlling the burst frequency of SAW.

[1]  M. Akamatsu.  Touch with a mouse-a mouse type interface device with tactile and force display , 1994, Proceedings of 1994 3rd IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Communication.

[2]  Motoyuki Akamatsu,et al.  Multimodal Mouse: A Mouse-Type Device with Tactile and Force Display , 1994, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[3]  Hiroyuki Shinoda,et al.  A tactile feeling display based on selective stimulation to skin receptors , 1998, Proceedings. IEEE 1998 Virtual Reality Annual International Symposium (Cat. No.98CB36180).

[4]  Toshio Watanabe,et al.  A method for controlling tactile sensation of surface roughness using ultrasonic vibration , 1995, Proceedings of 1995 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation.

[5]  Toshiro Higuchi,et al.  Direct Frictional Driven Surface Acoustic Wave Motor , 1995, Proceedings of the International Solid-State Sensors and Actuators Conference - TRANSDUCERS '95.

[6]  Robert D. Howe,et al.  Tactile Display of High-Frequency Information in Teleoperation and Virtual Environments. , 1995 .

[7]  S. H. Bowden,et al.  A 9ns Electrically Erasable Cmos Programmable Logic Device , 1988, 1988 IEEE International Solid-State Circuits Conference, 1988 ISSCC. Digest of Technical Papers.

[8]  Robert D. Howe,et al.  Tactile Display of Vibratory Information in Teleoperation and Virtual Environments , 1995, Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments.

[9]  M. Takasaki,et al.  A tactile display using surface acoustic wave , 2000, Proceedings 9th IEEE International Workshop on Robot and Human Interactive Communication. IEEE RO-MAN 2000 (Cat. No.00TH8499).