Tactile feedback with adaptive controller for a force-reflecting haptic display. 1. Design

Describes the development of custom-built tactile feedback hardware and its integration with an available force reflecting haptic interface. Design requirements were motivated strongly by the characteristics of the human tactile sense as well as the biomechanical characteristics of the human finger. The work explores the feasibility of various actuators, and selects a small solenoid actuator for application in a closed-loop force control tactile feedback system. System architecture is described, including a simple PI controller. A companion paper describes an adaptive controller with continuously variable gain scheduling that is based upon this PI controller, and includes an evaluation of the system.