Perceiving physical attributes of objects using an electrostatic tactile display

Abstract

Based on the physical principle that the Coulomb force exerted on a finger affects the attractive and frictional felt by the finger sliding through a surface, An electrostatic force tactile approached is proposed, and a related display based on Windows is also developed. With this display, not only the information of static images, including shapes, textures and softness of objects, is perceived realistically, but the contents of dynamic videos are also presented in real-time. Two typical applications referring to the primary education and the auxiliary visually impaired people are exploited to demonstrate the potential practical value of this prototype.