VITAL: a new low-cost vibro-tactile display system

Tactile displays are deformable surfaces that simulate skin deformations that occur when interacting with real surfaces (relieves) by transmitting small-scale shape information and vibration to the fingertip. We present a new vibrotactile display system composed of a matrix of 8/spl times/8 tactile display, a control/power system (electrical hardware) and a software interface dedicated to translate and display a black and white picture on the 8/spl times/8 tactile display with different close-ups. The 8/spl times/8 tactile display is based on a new multi-layer concept. This concept allows developing a new generation of tactile matrices with a high density of micro actuators, a simple assembling process and at a quite competitive price.