A micro tactile transceiver for fingertip motion recognition and texture generation

•A tactile device capable of fingertip motion recognition and texture generation using friction tunable capacitive slider-pad.•The integrated device is capable to detect 3-D movement input from the fingertip as well as to generate texture output to the fingertip.•Potentials of the integrated tactile transceiver as an interactive tactile interface for mobile applications are demonstrated.

We present a micro tactile information transceiver that recognizes user's fingertip motion (direction/selection) input and generates artificial texture output using frictional-force tunable slider-pad. The proposed micro tactile transceiver offers capacitive detection of human gesture input and simultaneous generation of frictional force and vibration by electrostatic attraction of slider-pad. In the experimental study, we verified the tactile input recognition performance by measuring the capacitance changes for the z-axis (selection) and x-/y-axis (direction) movement, which were 0.146 ± 0.02 nF/40 μm and 0.03 ± 0.02 nF/250 μm, respectively. We also verified the artificial texture generation performance by measuring frictional force and lateral vibration by controlling the electrostatic force between slider-pad and electrode layer. The frictional force was measured in the range of 32–152 mN under 0–80 V DC input voltages, offering the lateral force on skin in the range of 121–580 mN combined with spring force. We applied AC voltage to induce fluctuating frictional force to generate lateral vibration on the skin, and obtained peak-to-peak fluctuation of 128.1 ± 0.8 mN under 3 Hz/60 V which is a 32% improved value compared to previous approaches. The proposed micro tactile information transceiver is capable of recognizing human gesture information (direction/selection) and generating the artificial texture information.