A finger attachment to generate tactile feedback and make 3D gesture detectable by touch panel sensor

In this paper, we introduce a simple device called Haptic Adapter which is attached to a finger and generates tactile feedback to the finger during touch panel operation. It also converts a finger action in the 3D space into a sequence of contact points on the 2D touch panel surface. Prototypes of Haptic Adapter have been designed and applied to such problems as text inputting, web browsing and virtual gaming. Effectiveness of its tactile feedback has been evaluated with the prototypes and their applications. The tactile feedback is used to guide the finger operation on the touch panel so that the finger operation is confirmed with the tactile sense and the input-error is reduced through the confirmation. It is also used to give realistic tactile feeling while playing games on the touch panel. Samples of such games are also demonstrated.