Development of Quantitative Tactile Display Device to Provide Both Pin- Array-Type Tactile Feedback and Thermal Feedback

This paper proposes a tactile display device that can provide both pin-array type tactile feedback and thermal feedback. The pin-array type tactile display is composed of a 6times5 pin-array that is individually actuated by 30 piezoelectric bimorphs. Micro shape and vibrotactile feedback can be generated by the device, and various planar distributed patterns can be displayed as can Braille cell patterns. The thermal feedback device is composed of a thin film resistance temperature detector (RTD), a thermal pad as pin guide made of copper, 3 Peltier thermoelectric heat pumps and a water cooling jacket. Thermal feedback device allows that users can discriminate among different materials by considering the temperature variation that can be sensed as they touch an object's surface with stimulating heat transfer phenomena between a fingertip and an object