Data-Driven Texture Rendering with Electrostatic Attraction

In this paper, we present a data-driven haptic rendering method applied to a tactile display based on electrostatic attraction force. For realistic virtual textures, surface data from three materials is collected using an accelerometer and then replayed on the electrostatically-actuated tactile display. The proposed data-driven texture rendering method was compared with the standard square wave excitation through a psychophysical experiment. Subjects rated similarities between real samples and virtual textures rendered by both methods. Results show that the virtual textures generated with the data-driven method had significantly higher percentage of similarity with the real textures in comparison to the square wave signal. In addition, the proposed method resulted in higher number of correct matches between virtual models and real materials.