Tesla Touch: Electrovibration for Touch Surfaces by Olivier Bau, Ivan Poupyrev, Ali Israr, Chris Harrison. Published in UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23nd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology.
Author Bios
- Olivier Bau holds a PhD in Computer Science and is currently a PostDoctoral Research Scientist at Disney Research in Pittsburgh.
- Ivan Poupyrev is also currently a Research Scientist at Walt Disney Research, and holds his PhD from Hiroshima University in Japan.
- Ali Israr is currently part of the Interaction Design team at Disney Research, and his research primarily focuses on haptics. He holds a PhD in Mechanics from Purdue.
- Chris Harrison is a fifth year PhD student in the HCI Institute at Carnegie Mellon University. He is also a Microsoft Research PhD Fellow.
Summary
Hypothesis
The principle of electrovibration offers an advantageous alternative to current tactile interfaces for touch surfaces.
Methods
In the subjective evaluation, ten participants were exposed to four Tesla-touch textures. For each texture, participants answered questions and described the sensations. For determining detection and discrimination thresholds, ten participants spent about 15 minutes each in the detection threshold, and 7 participants spent about 10 minutes each in the frequency/amplitude detection. The participants were exposed to varying levels and intensities of frequency and amplitude signals and asked to identify when they were detectable.
Results
From the subjective evaluation, higher-frequency stimuli were perceived as smoother compared to lower frequencies, with descriptions like "paper" versus "wood". They found that the effect of amplitude depended on the underlying frequency. Increasing amplitude for high frequencies caused an increase in the perceived smoothness, where for low frequencies it caused an increased in perceived stickiness. In determining the detection thresholds and amplitude discrimination thresholds, they found that frequency had a very significant effect on determinable threshold, and that frequency seems to have little effect on amplitude JND.
Contents
This paper discusses the development, testing, and application of a different approach to generating tactile feedback to touch interfaces. The authors discuss the use of electrovibration, which essentially uses very low levels of current to stimulate the finger tips. They tested different combinations of amplitude and frequency to identify the specific sensations that people associate with, and also tested exactly where the cut off levels are for being detectable at all. Following the testing, they discussed the results and gave suggestions as to how this might be applicable, such as through tactile information layers.
Discussion
I was impressed with the level of completeness provided in this paper. They discuss every part of the process from beginning to end, from potential benefits to potential uses. I feel that this shows a high level of awareness of the paper's place in the tech ring. As for the topic itself, this sort of tactile response is almost certain to become more prevalent in the next few years and this particular approach does seem to show a number of advantages over what is currently available. I don't have any complaints about the paper, and I think it did a pretty good job of covering all major points of interest.
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