Modeling and Experimental Evaluation of Haptic Localization Using Electrostatic Vibration Actuators

Touch screen devices have become ubiquitous in modern day-to-day lives. While smaller touchscreen devices provide enough user engagement with meaningful haptic feedback, large touch devices still lack meaningful haptic stimulation. Existing literature for large touch surface vibrotactile localization uses many actuators and conventional boundary conditions. Previous numerical studies on haptic localization do not address multi-frequency excitation. This research proposes a new spring-damper boundary condition for a large bar-type display. Subsequently, a mechanical model of the large touch bar surface with multiple-electrostatic vibration actuators is developed using material damping information with multi-frequency excitation. Simultaneously, an experimental setup is developed for validation of the developed model. An optimization technique to localize vibrotactile haptic rendering at multiple selected zones of the touch bar is proposed. It has been established that by varying frequencies of excitation of two electrostatic resonant actuators, localizable vibrotactile feedback can be generated across the length of the touch bar. The experimental results corroborate the simulation results. Finally, the proposed optimization strategy for multi-zone vibrotactile rendering is experimentally verified.