Analysis and Design of a New Haptic Box Display Based on Magneto-Rheological Fluids

In this paper we describe a design of an innovative immersive Haptic Black Box (HBB) based on Magneto Rheological Fluids (MRF). By exploiting results from an accurate analysis performed on a previously operating haptic display a new device capable of exciting the MRF with improved performance in terms of magnetic eld intensity and spatial resolution has been developed. Due to the core structure and feeding conditions, only a 3D numerical analysis, taking into account the material non-linearity, provides an accurate prediction of the excitation eld and, consequently, of the rheological behavior of the uid. The results of the present paper will be used in subsequent work where the realization of the prototype and the results of several psychophysical tests on excited MRF in terms of softness and/or shape reconstruction will be described.