Haptic Controller Design and Palm-sized Vibrotactile Array

We present a haptic controller prototype and a palmsized vibrotactile array. A primary design goal was to produce a simple device suitable for prototyping ideas or introducing students to haptic controllers. Despite its simplicity, the controller is useful for various applications of low-cost DC tactors. It receives commands from a PC through a standard serial interface and controls up to 32 DC elements such as vibrating pager motors, with intensity of each element controlled by pulse-width modulation. We used the controller to construct a 30tactor rectangular vibrotactile array as a testbed for feedback to a user’s palm using low-cost DC tactors. We describe the use of spatial anti-aliasing for improved sensations. We also introduce a touchpad-driven interpersonal haptic communication system in which the array is driven by touchpad input, thereby allowing one user to haptically “draw” on a remote user’s hand.