A compact tactile display suitable for integration in VR and teleoperation

Haptic feedback should integrate kinaesthetic and tactile feedback. However current haptic displays do not satisfy the stringent performance and design requirements for integration in teleoperation and VR. This work presents the development of a compact, high performance tactile display for the fingertip. The compact design, high performance, reliability, and simple connectivity of this display make it suitable for immediate integration in current VR and master-slave haptic systems. In terms of performance this display achieves an excellent combination of force, amplitude and spatiotemporal resolution at the tactors, surpassing the performance of devices of a similar footprint. Its operation is based on the display of surface shape to an area of the fingertip through a 4×4 array of vertically moving tactors. The tactors are spring loaded and are actuated remotely by dc motors through a flexible tendon transmission. This work presents the overall design, control and performance of the device. A preliminary analysis of the transmission system is presented and is used to compensate for output errors induced by component elasticity.