206 results about "Haptic sensing" patented technology

Haptic feedback interface devices using electroactive polymer (EAP) actuators to provide haptic sensations and / or sensing capabilities. A haptic feedback interface device is in communication with a host computer and includes a sensor device that detects the manipulation of the interface device by the user and an electroactive polymer actuator responsive to input signals and operative to output a force to the user caused by motion of the actuator. The output force provides a haptic sensation to the user. Various embodiments of interface devices employing EAP actuators are described, including embodiments providing direct forces, inertial forces, and braking forces.

Haptic sensations for tactile feedback computer interface devices. In one method, a tactile sensation is output during the interaction of a cursor and a graphical object, the tactile sensation being based on a periodic waveform and having a frequency correlated with a size of the graphical object interacted with the cursor. Another method includes receiving an indication of a position of a cursor, causing the cursor to snap to a graphical object, such as a line, when the cursor is within a predetermined distance so that the cursor can be moved along or within the graphical object, and enabling the output of a vibration sensation while the cursor is moved along or within the object. In another method, a tactile sensation includes a pop sensation that is a short, high magnitude sensation, and then a ringing sensation during or immediately after the output of the pop sensation and which can fade in magnitude over time.

A tactile touch-sensitive device for use as an electronic input device for navigating an electronic document on a display device is described. The tactile aspect of the device provides a document location indicator, such as a protrusion or a depression, which may be perceived through the sense of touch. The device may incorporate additional features such as multiple modes of navigation, namely isotonic and isometric scrolling. Various sensors, such as force sensors and capacitive sensors, may provide the user with coarse and fine scrolling capabilities through different types of interactions with the scrollbar. The force sensors may allow the user to alter the rate of scrolling by adjusting the magnitude of force applied. Additionally, capacitive sensors may detect absolute positions of a user's finger movement and navigate through a document pursuant to those movements.

Multi-function transducers (130, 700) that are suitable for use in handheld devices such as cellular telephones (100, 900) and are capable of emitting audio, and generating accelerations of sufficient magnitude, and at frequencies that can be sensed by tactile sensation and which exhibit resonant modes that are characterized by center frequencies within a frequency range that can be sensed by tactile sensation, and specifically located between two musical notes on a musical scale are provided. Devices (100, 900) including such transducer are provided, and methods of operating such transducers are provided.

Provided is an active driving type visual and tactile display device, in which a flat panel display device for visually displaying an image and a haptic part for generating a tactile sense using an electrostatic force are integrated to generate textures according to an electrostatic force based on an image signal. As a result, visual and tactile senses may be simultaneously recognized. Since the display device enables a user to simultaneously see an image through a visual sense and perceive various textures through a tactile sense, the performance of a device is significantly improved. Therefore, various textures according to an image signal can be precisely realized by the generation of an electrostatic force per unit cell.

A system and a method are realized in which in a conventional non-grounding man-machine interface having no reaction base on the human body and for giving the existence of a virtual object and the impact force of a collision to a person, a haptic sensation of a torque, a force and the like can be continuously presented in the same direction, which can not be presented by only the physical characteristic of a haptic sensation presentation device. In a haptic presentation device 112, the rotation velocity of at least one rotator in the haptic presentation device 112 is controlled by a control device 111, and a vibration, a force or a torque as the physical characteristic is controlled, so that the user 110 is made to conceive various haptic information of the vibration, force, torque or the like. The haptic information presentation system uses a human sensory characteristic or illusion to suitably control the physical quantity, and causes the person to feel a force which can not exist physically, or a haptic sensory physical characteristic.

A finger-mounted implement including a kinesthetic sensor, at least one tactile sensor, and means for securing the kinesthetic sensor and the at least one tactile sensor to a fingertip. The tactile sensor may be a thin-film force transducer, a piezoelectric accelerometer, or a combination thereof. An artificial fingernail may be connected to the accelerometer. The kinesthetic sensor may include a magnetic transducer and may sense an X-Y-Z position and an angular orientation of a fingertip to which the kinesthetic sensor is secured. The securing means may include at least one means selected from the group consisting of adhesive tape, an elastically deformable cover, and detachable adhesive. The implement can be further connected to a computer processing system for, amongst other things, the virtual representation of sensed objects. The implement can also be used as part of a method of haptic sensing of objects.

Biofeedback is used to alter subsequent speech of one or more participants engaged in a discussion. Biofeedback signals can range from simplistic (beeps, flashes, vibrations, etc.) to more complicated images, videos, and music. In one aspect, feedback signals can be rendered to the participant(s) based on the extent to which the discussion relates to one or more goals. Signals can be rendered in any suitable manner, including a visual image rendered by a virtual reality headset or other device, an electronically generated auditory sound, other tactilely perceptible vibrations or other movements, preferably in substantially near real-time.

The invention discloses an all-flexible resistive touch and pressure perception sensor and a manufacturing method thereof. The all-flexible resistive touch and pressure perception sensor is characterized in that a pressure perception sensor and a touch perception sensor are formed on a lower flexible substrate through a layer-by-layer assembly technology; the pressure perception sensor and the touch perception sensor are connected by an upper flexible substrate, and are shaped as a flat half-sphere as a whole; and the upper touch perception sensor is of an interdigital electrode structure, and the lower pressure perception sensor is of an upper and lower electrode structure. The all-flexible resistive touch and pressure perception sensor of the invention can be used to measure small-range touch force and large-range pressure force, and the accuracy of measurement of different ranges is ensured. Moreover, all the structures of the sensor are flexible, all leads are led to the bottom, and the phenomenon of tedious and ugly leads is avoided.

In a device for transmitting information to a living being, an information related to a display is transmitted to a tactile sense of the living being touching a shape-memory alloy arranged on a display panel, by motion of expansion and contraction of the shape-memory alloy, without obstructing the visibility of the display panel. The device includes a transparent sheet-like tactile perceptual unit, arranged on the display panel, and a signal generating unit, which generates a signal voltage for driving the tactile perceptual unit. The signal generating unit and the display panel are connected to the control unit. The shape-memory alloy attached to the tactile perceptual unit transmits the information to the living being by contracting the shape-memory alloy in response to an application of a signal voltage, with relation to the display of the display panel.

The present invention relates to a touch measurement sensor based on visual sense, belonging to the field of the robot sensor technology. The touch sensor comprises necessary structure assemblies such as an image acquisition camera, an elastic body with a mark point, a light emitting diode and the like, and employs a semiconductor technology and a micro mechanical processing technology. When the sensor is directly contacted with on object, the elastic body is forced to generate deformation, the mark points can correspondingly move, and the front and back image information of the mark points are captured by the image acquisition camera. Compared with the front and back image information of the applied force, the displacement information of the mark points is calculated, and an elastic principle is employed to calculate the force condition of the sensor through the displacement information of the mark points. The touch measurement sensor based on visual sense can provide measurement of three-dimensional force information such as touch, slip sensing, pressure sensing and the like and can be applied to the robot dexterous hand's touch sensing field.

An operating device having an operating element with haptic feedback. The operating element can be actuated by an operator by means of an input member, the operating device includes two ferromagnetic planar components and a flat coil. The largest surfaces of the ferromagnetic planar components are oriented toward each other and the components can be moved relative to each other. The flat coil is disposed between the ferromagnetic components and the ferromagnetic planar components can be moved toward each other by energizing the flat coil. The movement of one of the ferromagnetic planar components can be perceptible to the tactile sense of the operator on the operating element either directly or by a coupling device.

Embodiments of the invention relate to methods and systems for providing customized 'haptic messaging' to users of handheld communication devices in a variety of applications. In one embodiment, a method of providing haptic messaging to a hand communication device includes: associating an input signal with an event; determining a source of the event and selecting the control signal based on the determination; and outputting a control signal to an actuator coupled to the hand communication device. The control signal is configured to cause the actuator to output a haptic effect associated with the event. An event in the above may be a user interface navigation event.

The invention discloses a manipulator based on a touch sensor. The manipulator comprises a manipulator body, a sensor array, a sensor data collector and a sensor data processing unit. The manipulator with the touch sensor array is integrated, touch perception of a reality object is achieved, a data storage scheme is provided, relative contact senses, pressure senses, sliding senses and other touch sense information of the contact object are kept permanently, and follow-up touch sense representation and object analysis are facilitated.

A haptic interface, including: a button which can be rotated by a user; an interaction element interacting with a magnetorheological fluid, secured to the button; a mechanism measuring a current position of the button; a brake including a magnetorheological fluid and a generation system to generate a magnetic field in the fluid; a controller configured to generate orders for the system to generate a magnetic fluid to modify a value of the magnetic field; and a mechanism to detect torque exerted by a user on the button to know direction of the torque and whether the torque is greater than a given value for a given direction, the controller controlling generation of a magnetic field based on obtained information about the torque at least when the button indicates zero or low speed.

The invention discloses a texture force touch sensing method based on single image fractional order processing. The method includes the steps that a fractional differential algorithm is utilized, the order gamma of the fractional differential algorithm is adjusted dynamically, an enhanced texture image is obtained, original image texture information is extracted from the enhanced texture image, and multi-scale analysis of the detail texture and the edge contour of different rates of gray level changes is achieved from the point of image airspace gray level change features; force touch rendering is carried out on the virtual surface texture, and tangential force frictional damping coefficients of a force touch sensing model are controlled on the basis of gradient vector distribution of the enhanced texture image; obtained resultant force is calculated and fed back to an operator through a hand controller. By the utilization of sensibility of fractional differential to detail information, the sense of reality of texture force touch sensing is enhanced by manually selecting orders, extracting texture information in a two-dimensional image signal from different scales and converting the texture information into frictional damping control.

The invention discloses a two-degree-of-freedom modularized artificial hand thumb with a moment of force, position and touch perception function and relates to an artificial hand thumb. The two-degree-of-freedom modularized artificial hand thumb is used for solving the problems that matching between a prior artificial hand thumb and other fingers is poor, the grabbing function of the prior artificial hand thumb is limited, the prior artificial hand thumb is lack of the touch perception function, a transmission structure is complex and the modularization degree is low. The two ends of a metacarpal bone joint shaft are supported by fixed frames. A first worm gear and one end of a metacarpal bone base are arranged on the metacarpal bone joint shaft in a penetrating mode, wherein the first worm gear is located in one end of the metacarpal bone base. A first worm gear cover plate is arranged at one end of the metacarpal bone joint shaft, the metacarpal bone joint shaft is tightened through a metacarpal bone joint screw, and the other end of the metacarpal bone joint shaft is fixedly sleeved with a second plastic transmission gear. A position sensor is fixed to a sensor fixing frame, and a first plastic gear is installed on a transmission shaft of the position sensor, fixedly and axially connected with an inner hole of the position sensor and meshed with the second plastic transmission gear. The two-degree-of-freedom modularized artificial hand thumb is used on the palm of a robot.

The invention relates to a bionic skin three-dimensional force touch perception device and a measuring method of the bionic skin three-dimensional force touch perception device. The bionic skin three-dimensional force touch perception device comprises a shell, a unit upper layer, a unit basic level and a circuit module. The measuring method comprises the following steps that dynamic data signals are collected to an MCP3208 chip; analog signals are converted into digital signals after entering the MCP 3208 chip; the digital signals enter an EP10K250A chip and are output after being calculated and analyzed; the output signals enter a CY7C68013 chip and then are sent to an upper PC through a USB interface, and LabView virtual instrument software is operated to calculate the forced magnitude and the forced direction of each sensitive unit; eventually the forced situation is stacked to a skin model. The bionic skin three-dimensional force touch perception device and the measuring method of the bionic skin three-dimensional force touch perception device stimulate the multilayer structure of the real skin, and conducting square blocks are arranged annularly referring to a clock, so that accuracy of direction representation is improved. Besides, an electromagnetic shielding layer is imported, so that electromagnetic insulation protection is formed, and measuring efficiency and accuracy are effectively improved.

An operating device having an operating element with haptic feedback. The operating element can be actuated by an operator by means of an input member, the operating device includes two ferromagnetic planar components and a flat coil. The largest surfaces of the ferromagnetic planar components are oriented toward each other and the components can be moved relative to each other. The flat coil is disposed between the ferromagnetic components and the ferromagnetic planar components can be moved toward each other by energizing the flat coil. The movement of one of the ferromagnetic planar components can be perceptible to the tactile sense of the operator on the operating element either directly or by a coupling device.

The invention relates to a three-dimensional tactile force detection method based on micro-vision, and belongs to the technical field of intellisense of robot dexterous hand executing tail ends. The three-dimensional force detection technology method for verification is designed on the basis of an independently-designed tactile sensor, a good effect is achieved in the gripping process, and the method belongs to the technical field of robot perception. When the sensor directly makes contact with an object, an elastomer can be subjected to force to generate deformation, marking points can correspondingly generate displacement, and image information generated before and after the marking points generate displacement is captured by an image collecting camera. Deviation information of the marking points is calculated through comparison of the image information generated before and after the force is applied, and then a regressed three-dimensional force prediction vector is obtained through neural network training and predicting. According to the three-dimensional tactile force detection method based on micro-vision, three-dimensional force tactile sense information, three-dimensional force slip sense information and the like in the dexterous hand gripping process can be detected, and the method can be applied to the field of tactile perception of robot dexterous hands.

This invention presents a system for adding unevenness to keyboards in touch screens. Said unevenness will help the user to better perceive the keys on which she is placing her fingers, therefore helping her to type faster and with higher confidence and accuracy. There exist several ways to add said unevenness. In one of them, a thin sheet is placed upon the touch screen, said sheet comprising several openings or cavities. When the user moves her finger over said openings, she will, by her sense of touch, perceive the keys on which her finger is moving. The previous sheet can be transparent to allow seeing the keys located on the screen, but it can also be opaque if the keys are printed on top of it in corresponding position to the keys that are shown on the touch screen.

The invention relates to a tactile sensing data glove, which belongs to the technical field of human-computer interaction equipment. The tactile sensing data glove includes 15 pieces of finger tactile sensors and 1 piece of palm tactile sensors, all of which are multi-array flexible tactile sensors. The microprocessor collects tactile information during human hand operation, and displays the tactile pressure changes in real time on the central processing unit. At the same time, it realizes the functions of pressure perception, softness and hardness of contact objects, and identification of object shape and surface material. The data glove system is easy to wear, can effectively reflect the tactile information of the human hand, and realizes the recognition function, and can be applied to various fields such as human-computer interaction, remote operation, and rehabilitation monitoring.

For training the tactile perception of a marksman, in particular of a sport marksman, during the firing of a shot in which the marksman exercising a pressure on a trigger of a real or simulation firearm which triggers the shot when it crosses a predetermined threshold, a training process comprises (i) measuring the pressure exercised on said trigger by a finger of said marksman, (ii) converting said measured pressure into electric signals representing an instantaneous amplitude of a pressure vector, and (iii) transforming in real time said electric signals into signals perceptible by a sense of the marksman other than the tactile sense, so that the marksman can in real time follow the variation of the pressure exercised on said trigger until the departure of said shot in simultaneity and in synchronism with the tactile perception perceived by said finger. A training device for implementing this process is also provided.

The invention discloses a pneumatic type soft mechanical hand with a touch sensing function. The pneumatic soft mechanical hand is composed of an electric heating phase change actuator, a soft mechanical hand and a flexible touch sensing unit, wherein a flexible heating film and a liquid phase change material are arranged in the electric heating phase change actuator. According to the pneumatic type soft mechanical hand with the touch sensing function, the liquid phase change material is evaporated by electrifying and heating the flexible heating film, so that the pressure intensity of the cavity in the inner part of the electric heating phase change actuator is regulated, thus the bending state of the soft mechanical hand is dynamically adjusted so as to complete the grabbing operation; meanwhile, the flexible touch sensing unit is used for sensing time-varying information of grabbing force during the grabbing target process of the soft mechanical hand and taking the time-varying information as a feedback source for adjusting the bending state of the soft mechanical hand, so that closed-loop feedback control is formed; and the structure of the pneumatic type soft mechanical hand is flexible, a feasibility scheme is provided for safely and intelligently grabbing for the robot dexterous hand.

The invention is a haptic sensor, which comprises a sensing layer, a pressure modulator, more than one pressure-sensing unit and a controlling unit. The sensing layer consists of a plurality of elastomers and the pressure modulator is connected with the sensing layer through pipelines to control the inner pressure of the elastomers. The pressure sensing unit can sense the pressure change inside the elastomers and the controlling unit is connected with the pressure modulator which can receive the sensing signals produced by the pressure-sensing unit and the pressure-sensing unit. Through covering the surface of a movable device with the haptic sensor, the magnitude and position of the touch external force can be known by sensing the pressure change of the gasbag inside the elastomers and also different degrees of softness can be presented by means of gas supply to change the inner pressure of the gasbag inside the elastomers.

The invention discloses a haptic representation sense of reality objective evaluation method based on a human haptic perception feature. The method simulates a sense of reality evaluation process subjectively carried out by a person. The method is characterized in that first of all, data acquisition is performed on the same haptic representation task in a realistic environment and a virtual environment, a multidimensional matrix, i.e., a "haptic image", is generated through analysis, through modeling based on the human haptic perception feature, perception filtering is performed on the haptic image, data is mapped to a perception space, similarity analysis is performed on the data in the realistic environment and the virtual environment in the perception space, and thus objective evaluation of haptic sense of reality representation is completed. According to the invention, the method has the following advantages: influences exerted by human subjective factors in an evaluation process are effectively avoided, and the stability and the repeatability are high; compared to a conventional subjective evaluation experiment requiring many people and long time, the efficiency is high, and time is saved; the human haptic perception feature is taken into full consideration, and the process is closer to a real evaluation process; and the method is suitable for different haptic representation devices and tasks.