Sketching the future of the SmartMesh wide area haptic feedback device by introducing the controlling concept for such a deformable multi-loop mechanism

Lately, we have been proposing a novel concept for a wide area haptic feedback device. It is based on a deformable mechanical structure capable of morphing its shape in order to imitate a desired object. Due to the physical presence of the resulting shape, the latter can intuitively be touched and explored with the whole hand. The prototype has been called SmartMesh [A. Mazzone et al., (2003)]. After a short review of the SmartMesh mechanism, this paper focuses on the controllability issue of such a multi-degrees of freedom structure and introduces the concept and the implementation of the control algorithm responsible for providing the required parameters for the actuation of the mechanical structure. The results emphasize the amazing deformation capability and expressiveness of a future haptic feedback enabled user interface device based on the SmartMesh concept.