Electro-tactile device for texture simulation

The research goal is material texture simulation by means of electro-tactile stimuli. This paper presents a novel tactile display, the procedure adopted to generate the stimulating signals, and the experimental testing. The tactile system elaborates data from scans of real material samples and generates electrical stimuli to reproduce roughness and texture coarseness sensations. It also adds a coherent sound feedback to improve the realism of the simulation. The research defines an experimental protocol to carry out system calibration and tests with users in order to validate the proposed tactile system as a new tool for material simulation. Experimentations have been carried out to measure the users’ response to different material classes (wood, paper, rubber, textile fabric). Experimental results concern how good the adopted simulation approach is and the tactile stimuli simulated by the system are. Main findings relate to the system performance and the users’ response in terms of signal recognition and material class discrimination.