Large-Area Multi-Touch Electrotactile Device
A new type of a large-area multi-touch tactile device operated by electrotactile stimulation was proposed. To get closer to the possibility of integrating multi-touch tactile devices operated by electrotactile stimulation into flat panel displays, this research focused on developing a large-area tactile device driven by electrotactile stimulation that can fully cover them. The anodes took responsibility for delivering signals and cathodes which surrounded anodes played the role of switches to divide signals.
Like a TFT array, every anode in a same row received the same signal simultaneously, but different cathodes were controlled to be conductive or not with different time intervals and repetition frequencies. When participants touched the panel, only the regions where the anodes received current pulses and the surrounding cathodes were conductive were effective. As controlling the cathodes in different regions to be conductive or not with short time interval, it could deliver different stimulation to different regions.
To verify that the device could deliver multiple electrotactile stimulation simultaneously, participants were asked to use left and right index fingers to swipe two different regions with distinct current pulses at the same time.
At least 70% participants could notice the difference between two regions. This result indicated that this research achieved the goal and more results could be found below.