A method for converting end effectors of various forms into tactile interfaces

This paper focuses on extending a previously reported technique to convert a desk into a tactile interface. The original technique, based on the so-called "Haptic Desk" enables the detection of an applied force and its contact point by force sensors at the desk´s supporting points. Consumer electronics and furniture can be converted into tactile interfaces with the use of this technique. However, this method has the restriction that an object should be composed of planes. The authors introduce a method of modeling the object as a set of points and estimating the contact point based on the distance between a point and the force representative line. Since there is a possibility that an incorrect contact point is estimated, the standard deviation of the distance is used to prevent incorrect estimations. The results of experiments show that the error is reduced by introducing the standard deviation.