Conceptual design of mniniature tunable stiffness display using MR fluids

Stiffness information is one of the important factors to naturally and intuitively interact with electronic devices and displays. For small-sized electronics, such as hand-held devices, the size of haptic modules is a key limiting factor, and it must be minimized. This paper proposes a concept of miniature and tunable stiffness display an aim to design a miniature device conveying stiffness information. The proposed device is based on Magneto-Rheological(MR) fluids, and its stiffness can be varied by activating the MR fluids with the magnetic field produced by the solenoid, . The proposed stiffness display is composed of three main parts such as an elastic returning part (providing elastic force), a stiffness tuning part (generating resistive force), and a PDMS membrane reservoir part (serving as a repository for the MR fluids). The use of MR fluids in the haptic display allows us to miniature it by eliminating bulky electrical and mechanical components in conventional haptic devices.