Design and performance of a Tactile Device For Haptic shape perception

A Haptic interface is a feedback device that generates sensation to the skin and muscles, including a sense of touch, weight and rigidity. This paper presents a design and performance of a tactile device for Haptic Shape perception. This tactile device contains a tactor pin which represents the 3(rd) axis (height) of a virtual object present in 2D screen. The height of a tactor pin varies in accordance with continuous variation of cursor's position on the shape of a virtual object in computer- simulated environment. Users can perceive the shape of a virtual object through their sense of touch by making a continuous physical contact (e.g. fingertip) with tactor pin. The tactile device for haptic shape perception is developed in three phases that are: (I) Development of electromechanical mechanism (II) Designing of a controller unit (III) Creation of the computer -simulated environment. This presented design is well suited to tactile display research, as it offers reasonable performance in a robust and inexpensive package.