Abstract
Shape displays enable people to touch simulated surfaces. A common architecture of such devices uses a mechatronic pin-matrix. Besides their complexity and high cost, these matrix displays suffer from sharp edges due to the discreet representation which reduces their ability to render a large continuous surface when sliding the hand. We propose using an engineered auxetic material actuated by a smaller number of motors. The material bends in multiple directions, feeling smooth and rigid to touch. A prototype implementation uses nine actuators on a 220 mm square section of material. It can display a range of surface curvatures under the palm of a user without aliased edges. In this work we use an auxetic skeleton to provide rigidity on a soft material and demonstrate the potential of this class of surface through user experiments.
Highlights
Shape displays enable people to touch simulated surfaces
We propose a shape display that is based on a flexible and stretchable auxetic material
We show how using auxetic materials for a shape display we can create a surface that is smooth to the touch and that provides a range of different Gaussian curvatures but is not pliable under forces normal to the surface
Summary
Shape displays enable people to touch simulated surfaces. A common architecture of such devices uses a mechatronic pin-matrix. 1234567890():,; Shape-changing devices are a subset of robotic systems that attempt to create shapes and surfaces[1] These can be used to deliver haptics for humans that can encounter, touch and manipulate these shapes[2]. A shape-changing device might have a reasonably high number of degrees of freedom and a mechanical structure that converts actuation to some form of constrained surface. The most typical type of shape-changing device is a pin-array (see examples in Fig. 1), where rods are actuated in height to form an approximation of a 3D surface[5]. Other relevant work comes from building techniques through molds, which are for example used to create shells of concrete panels for large curve fabrication[25] Those skeletons provide smooth interpolations of shapes and curves, they are not actuated and rely on manual reconfiguration. The interpolating material should retain its shape under some local pressure (as generated by touch), but be flexible over large scales
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