A track-pad device based on a piezoelectric bimorph

A track-pad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, able to translate the motion and position of a user's finger to a relative position on screen. It is a common feature of laptop computers, but it is also found on PDAs and smartphones. In this work a piezoelectric tactile sensor for track-pad applications is proposed, analyzed with FE methods and experimentally evaluated. The idea at the basis of the present work relies in the well known property of piezoelectric structures to vary its resonant behavior depending on the boundary or load conditions.