Tactile Feel Display for Virtual Active Touch

In order to display delicate touch feeling of surface of some materials, active touch of human hand movements should be considered. In this paper, a wearable stimulation device that can produce various distributed stimuli on human skin in response to hand movements was developed using ICPF (Ionic Conducting Polymer gel Film) actuators. Characteristics of touch feel of roughness were measured using vibratory stimulation. The results showed that the threshold amplitude under active touch were smaller than under passive touch. A stimulation method which generate selective stimuli to sense receptors in accordance with velocities and accelerations of hand motions was proposed. It was confirmed experimentally that some kinds of pattern of driving waves express touch feels in response to hand movements.