3D Printed Haptics: Creating Pneumatic Haptic Display Based on 3D Printed Airbags

Abstract

In this paper, we provide a rapid fabrication method to create customizable pneumatic haptic displays using 3D printing technology. Based on the 3d printed miniature airbag which is built form a simple modeling process, various shapes of the haptic display can be made. Not only altering the shape of a single airbag to make a one-dimensional haptic display, but also combining multi airbags as spacial distributed to construct a multi DoF haptic display is possible. The 3D printed airbag is scalable, light to wear and waterproof. Each airbag is inflated by a full-range speaker which mounted on a closed air chamber where the air is transferred back and forth through a tiny nozzle to the airbag. So both low-frequency pressure and high-frequency vibration could be presented. Our technical evaluation identified that the airbag is capable of presenting a wide range of mechanical vibration from 2 Hz to 800 Hz. In addition, a user study was done to investigate the capability of rendering multi degree-of-freedom tactile sensation. The average accuracy of distinguishing directional information is over 80%.