Conceptual design of new micro-actuator for tactile display

This paper presents the conceptual design of a new actuator composed of a solenoid, a permanent magnet, and an elastic spring for tactile display. In this actuator, the feedback force is generated by the interaction among the component (a solenoid, a permanent magnet, and an elastic springs). The actuators are arranged to build a small planar-distributed pin-array tactile display. The array of the actuators considerately minimizes the pins´ gap that is the most important factor for tactile display without decreasing output force, working amplitude and working frequency. Therefore, we propose the possibility to make a compact pin-array tactile display with much smaller pins´ gap that are independently actuated to generate realistic tactile feel of various textures.