University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Haptic Display Using Vibration Motors for Surface Texture Characterization

Ahn, Shawn

This item is only available for download by members of the University of Illinois community. Students, faculty, and staff at the U of I may log in with your NetID and password to view the item. If you are trying to access an Illinois-restricted dissertation or thesis, you can request a copy through your library's Inter-Library Loan office or purchase a copy directly from ProQuest.

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/90367

Description

Title
Haptic Display Using Vibration Motors for Surface Texture Characterization
Author(s)
Ahn, Shawn
Contributor(s)
Boppart, Stephen
Issue Date
2016-05
Keyword(s)
  • haptic display
  • surface texture
  • edge density
  • vibration motors
Abstract
Interactive display research has been a rising field due to the prevalence of smartphones and touchscreen tablets. Among many forms of haptic feedback in touch screens, the use of vibration motors has been a popular method. With the use of proper haptic feedback, touchscreen data may become accessible to people who are blind or have low vision, where they can feel the difference in texture in an image on a two-dimensional screen. This thesis explores the use of simple vibration motors used in common smartphones to trigger a wide range of frequencies, to induce proper frequency responses in skin mechanoreceptors, and to allow the detection of different surface textures in images. The methods presented here explore and characterize the difference in the surface texture of images using spatial frequencies obtained from the Fourier transform and edge density of subsections of images. The work includes the design of touchscreen hardware and vibration motors with a software interface to demonstrate an actual vibrotactile display. The work demonstrates that edge density of an image can be matched to an estimate of surface roughness in order to trigger a proper frequency response so that users can feel the difference in the texture of an image as they sweep through the screen with their fingers. Overall, this work builds a preliminary framework to implement a vibrotactile haptic display to show differences in surface textures in 2-D images using currently available vibration motors in smartphones.
Type of Resource
text
Language
en
Permalink
http://hdl.handle.net/2142/90367

Owning Collections

Senior Theses - Electrical and Computer Engineering PRIMARY
The best of ECE undergraduate research