Collaborative Research: HCC: Medium: TouchBots for Surface Haptics

合作研究：HCC：媒介：用于表面触觉的 TouchBot

• 批准号: 2106866
• 负责人: Mary Hipwell
• 金额: $ 40万
• 依托单位: Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2106866&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; HCC; Medium; TouchBots

This project will lead to a new class human-machine interfaces that provide tactile feedback to fingertips. Fingertips are remarkable multimodal sensors capable of detecting pressure and vibration, local defor-mation such as braille cells, hardness/softness, warmth/coolness, and endless types of textures. There are strong reasons to exploit these sensory capabilities in interfaces: making touch screens more accessi-ble for the vision impaired, making it easier to use touch interfaces in automobiles, providing touch feedback in augmented and virtual reality, and supporting remote touch in social, medical and retail applications. The wealth of commercially important use cases has led to a fast-growing market for touch feedback (“haptic”) technologies, yet none of the existing approaches engages more than a small fraction of the fingertips’ capabilities. The new interfaces to be developed – TouchBots – will provide a greatly expanded suite of haptic feedback modalities. A TouchBot is a miniaturized module that is placed be-tween a fingertip and a touch surface, such as a touchscreen or trackpad. It includes two main subsys-tems, one that guides the finger along a programmable path, and another that provides a sense of the shape and texture of objects along that path. Together, these subsystems will enable TouchBots to offer many new haptic interactions such as touch-typing interfaces without keyboards, realistic surface tex-tures for virtual reality, and fully programmable braille and tactile graphics anywhere there is a touch surface. These interactions have the potential to make touch screen devices accessible to the vision im-paired. Recognizing that a new generation of technological innovators will be needed to commercialize the fruits of this research, close ties will be forged to graduate-level curricula in innovation, leading to impact-minded individuals who are well-positioned to provide leadership in the growing haptics indus-try.The capabilities of a TouchBot stem from the manner in which it interacts with the underlying surface. The proposed TouchBot design include: (a) kinesthetic subsystem that provides feedback via passively rolling, but actively steered, wheels; (b) a cutaneous module that provides feedback via an array of tiny "pucks"; (c) selective brake mechanism for each of these pucks using electroadhesion. This approach, known as “cobotic,” has been thoroughly developed for macro-scale devices, and will be adapted here to the meso-scale by careful integration of steering actuation, wheel design, and intent sensing. Touch-bot will be extremely compact, with a low-power, and high-performance system for motion guidance. The ability of the TouchBot to provide local shape and texture will be provided by an array of tiny “pucks,” using the selective breaking mechanism. This research will leverage prior efforts in areas as diverse as surface haptics, wall-climbing robots and data storage read-write heads to realize an electro-adhesive device that is high-force and high-bandwidth and that can be used to control a high-density tactile array. By bringing these technologies together into fingertip-scale devices, it will be possible to demonstrate a wide range of surface haptic interactions including buttons, toggles, raised line drawings, braille characters, tactile graphics, and textures. Participatory design methods will be used to identify potential uses of TouchBot in the areas such as automotive and user interaction design. Experience proto-type and rapid iteration will be used to create stimuli that evoke rich feedback.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目将导致新的类人机接口，从而为指尖提供触觉反馈。指尖是能够检测压力和振动的杰出多模式传感器，当地的Defor-Sation，例如盲文细胞，硬度/柔软度，温暖/凉爽和无尽的纹理。有充分的理由在接口中利用这些感官功能：使触摸屏更容易访问视力受损，从而使在汽车中使用触摸接口更容易，从而提供了增强和虚拟现实中的触摸反馈，并支持社交，医疗和零售应用程序中的远程触摸。商业上重要的用例中的财富导致了一个快速增长的触摸反馈（“触觉”）技术的市场，但是现有的方法都不比一小部分指尖的能力吸引。新的界面（TouchBot）将提供大量扩展的触觉反馈方式。触摸机器人是一个微型模块，在指尖和触摸表面（例如触摸屏或触控板）之间放置。它包括两个主要子-Tems，一个可以沿着可编程路径引导手指，另一种可以对沿该路径的对象的形状和纹理感进行感觉。这些子系统一起将使TouchBots提供许多新的触觉相互作用，例如无键盘的接触式接口，虚拟现实的现实表面文本，以及在任何地方都有触摸表面的完全可编程的盲文和触觉图形。这些相互作用有可能使触摸屏设备可访问视觉上。认识到，将需要新一代的技术创新者来商业化这项研究的果实，因此将仔细地宽恕研究生级的创新课程，从而导致有影响力的人在不断增长的触觉工业中提供领导能力。拟议的TouchBot设计包括：（a）动力学子系统，该系统通过被动滚动但积极蒸的车轮提供反馈； （b）皮肤模块，通过一系列微小的“冰球”提供反馈； （c）使用Electroad Hishion为每种冰球的选择性制动机制。这种被称为“ cobotic”的方法是非常紧凑的，具有低功率和高性能的运动系统。使用选择性断裂机​​构，TouchBot提供本地形状和纹理的能力将由一系列微小的“冰球”提供。这项研究将利用像表面触觉，攀岩机器人和数据存储的潜水区域的先前努力，以实现一种具有高强度和高带宽的电粘附装置，可用于控制高密度触觉阵列。通过将这些技术融合到指尖尺度的设备中，可以演示各种表面触觉相互作用，包括按钮，切换，凸起线图，盲文字符，触觉图形和纹理。参与性设计方法将用于确定在汽车和用户互动设计等领域中TouchBot的潜在用途。经验原型和快速迭代将用于创造引起丰富反馈的刺激。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并使用基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响审查标准，认为通过评估被认为是珍贵的支持。