A tactile-haptic display system using micro-actuator array

The authors have developed a multi-modal display capable of stimulating muscles and tendons of the forearms and tactile receptors in fingers to investigate the effects on the presentation of tactile-haptic reality. The system comprises a master hand having two sets of tactile display with a 4-by-6 array of stimulus pins driven by micro-actuator array and an articulated manipulator. To evaluate the haptic display´s presentation capability, we performed two series of experiments. In experiment A, human subjects grasped virtual pegs and they judged their diameters. In experiment B, the human subjects tried to insert the pegs into a hole. We evaluated the presentation capability of the display on the basis of judgement precision of the peg´s diameter and variation in inclination of the peg. Since diameter discrimination and insertion precision of the virtual peg were increased by tactile information, tactile-haptics presentation was effective for the peg-in-hole in the case of relatively large clearance.