Multimodal Soft Tactile Display

Developing a multimodal tactile display is a real challenge for haptic scientists. Users can perceive hardness, roughness, stickiness, and temperature on this display. To achieve maximum realism, all these surface qualities must be provided. In this paper, a tactile device is developed which is capable of providing these surface qualities. The softness is rendered using a pneumatically actuated balloon. The roughness is created by employing a stretchable conductive fabric. A Peltier is used to provide temperature feedback. A psychophysical test is conducted to test the performance of the display. Results show the feasibility of using the proposed display in internet shopping of fruits and similar materials which are simulated in 2D on electronic devices.