A tactile micro transceiver for fingertip touch and movement recognition with texture expression

We present a tactile information transceiver for fingertip touch and movement recognition with the texture expression functions, using a friction-tunable capacitive slider-pad. Compared to the conventional tactile devices focused on tactile input function, the present device integrates the tactile input function and the tactile output function of texture expression. The tactile transceiver, composed of the top slider-layer and the bottom electrode layer, recognizes z-axis fingertip touch as well as x-/y-axis lateral movements from the capacitance change between top and the bottom layers. The electrostatic attraction force between the two layers modifies interlayer friction force; thus expressing texture to fingertip. In the experiment, the tactile transceiver recognizes both vertical touch and lateral movements of fingertip with the detection sensitivity of 0.146±0.02nF/40μm and 0.03±0.02nF/250μm, respectively. The texture has been expressed to the fingertip by the varying friction force in the range of 121~580mN.