A new haptic technology touchscreen: Development, characterization and reliability aspects

The paper aims to present the results of a research activity on a new haptic technology touchscreen. Up to now haptic technology has never been used in avionics mainly because of two difficulties (notwithstanding other ones): 1) necessity of large mechanical space (because of moving parts); 2) impossibility of detecting a small movement (haptic sensation) in an environment characterized by heavy vibration regime under all frequencies. This proposal overcomes the difficulties by using a haptic touchscreen that has no moving parts (new generation) along with an accurate innovative study of the feedback sensation, physical profile, that allows a univocally defined sense of actuation within any environment; the results presented will show that this system can be implemented with success in particular in the extremely demanding avionic environment. The proposed system is currently the first one in the world that has been developed and tested for avionic environment and this is possible because this technology allows the invention of algorithms that allow the actuating sensation, and effect, whatever the surrounding environment.