A novel tablet for on-line handwriting signal capture

At present, many kinds of handwriting-based applications have been developed. But up to now, all dynamic information describing writing process including forces, trajectories, velocities, accelerations and slants can't be acquired simultaneously by a single device. This paper introduces a new kind of tablet for on-line handwriting signal capture. With a special multi-dimension force/torque sensor, we can get the three perpendicular forces of the pen-tip to the contacting plane and the trajectory of the pen-tip on the writing material. The other dynamic information such as the velocities, accelerations, handwriting shape and slants can be calculated from the force and trajectory signals. And there is no special requirement on the writing pen. Experimental results show that the tablet is indeed capable of obtaining almost all on-line handwriting signals. This device could also be used as a new handwriting input tool for computers.