A Study on Fundamental Information Transmission Characteristics of an Air-Jet Driven Tactile Display

There are many people with impaired vision as well as hearing. Tactile displays can be useful to such people for communicating by means of characters and shapes. Many devices for tactile displays such as oscillators and electrocutaneous stimulators have been developed. However oscillators have two drawbacks: physical stress tends to build up in actuators because of long term exposure to oscillations, and they may transmit erroneous information because of unstable contacts between magnetic pins and the skin. Moreover, electrocutaneous stimulators cause discomfort to the user. In this study, we have developed a tactile information presentation technique that uses air jet stimulations and tactile phantom sensations induced by a complex combination of tactile perceptions. The tactile display can transmit information to the skin without physical contact and is free from the restriction of pitch size. In this paper, we have examined its fundamental information transmission characteristics.