Haptic mouse with quick and flexible tactile feedback generated by double control loop

This paper introduces a mouse with a tactile display that generates tactile feedback for multi-modal user interface. The control system to generate tactile feedback imitates the biological nervous system that has multiple feedback loops for quick and flexible reaction against sensory inputs. The control system, inspired by the biological system, has double feedback loops, one for the local feedback performed within the mouse for quick and fixed reaction and the other for the global feedback performed through the communication with an external computer for slow and flexible reaction. The conflicting demands of quickness and flexibility can be satisfied by combining these two feedback loops. The control system is applied to the multi-modal user interface that uses tactile information in addition to the auditory information to assist visually handicapped people to operate a web browser that uses the tactile information to guide cursor operation.