I-Corps: Tactile Displays for Haptic Gloves

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发有可能在增强现实和虚拟现实中增加视力障碍者的可访问性的技术。触觉图形被认为是至关重要的空间结构的信息，如地图，几何和数学方程的教学。然而，当今的动态触觉图形显示器通常过于昂贵。这项技术的低成本和紧凑性可能会大大改变触觉图形显示器和可刷新盲文的可用性。微型液压驱动是一项基础技术，在其他市场具有广泛的潜力，如软机器人，可穿戴设备，假肢和其他医疗设备。这个I-Corps项目是基于开发创建的致动器微型阵列，可以产生触觉反馈的相关压力和变形。单个致动器是电驱动的、可单独寻址的、紧凑的和动态的。此外，该阵列成本低、重量轻，并且它们可有利地扩展用于大量致动器。这有效地实现了一种新型的显示器，该显示器能够在皮肤区域上传达形状和边缘的详细触觉“图像”。这些创新将被整合到触觉手套中，以实现增强和虚拟现实环境中的触觉。皮肤是一个分布式的感觉器官，有超过25万个触觉传入纤维分布在身体的外表面，它就像视网膜一样能够感知空间。当皮肤在不同的点被拉伸、压缩和振动时，更高级别的物体被识别出来，比如你口袋里的钥匙。这种细微的、高容量的触觉信息传递在日常行动中不断发生，而且不费吹灰之力。触觉可以包含大量的知识，例如外科医生缝合的图案，或者机器人抓取物体的方向和位置，但很难交流。动态触觉显示器允许呈现这些知识，并且是触觉的基本技术，从而实现额外的研究和商业努力。虽然视觉显示已经达到了视网膜的极限，但大多数人遇到的最复杂的触觉反馈是智能手机的嗡嗡声或触摸板的点击。该项目将探索用于机器人远程操作任务的触觉手套，以及来自模拟公司的用于应急响应培训和医学教育的触觉手套。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of technology that has the potential to increase accessibility for those with vision impairments both in augmented and virtual reality. Tactile graphics are considered to be critical for teaching spatially structured information like maps, geometry, and mathematical equations. However, dynamic tactile graphic displays today are often prohibitively expensive. The low cost and compactness of this technology could drastically change the availability of tactile graphic displays as well as refreshable Braille. Miniature hydraulic actuation is a foundational technology that has broad potential in other markets, such as soft robotics, wearable devices, prostheses, and other medical devices. This I-Corps project is based on the development of created miniature arrays of actuators which can produce the relevant pressures and deformations for haptic feedback. The individual actuators are electrically driven, individually addressable, compact, and dynamic. Additionally, the arrays are low cost, lightweight, and they scale favorably for large numbers of actuators. This effectively enables a new type of display that is capable of conveying detailed tactile “images” of shapes and edges across an area of skin. These innovations will be incorporated astactile displays into haptic gloves to enable the sense of touch in augmented and virtual reality environments. The skin is a distributed sensory organ with over 250,000 tactile afferent fibers spread across the external surface of the body, and it is like the retina in its ability to sense across space. As the skin is stretched, compressed, and vibrated at different points, higher level objects are recognized, such askeys in your pocket. This type of nuanced, high volume tactile information transfer happens constantly and without effort in daily actions. An immense amount of knowledge can be contained in the sense of touch, such as the pattern of a surgeon’s suture, or the orientation and location of an object within a robot’s grip, yet it is hard to communicate. A dynamic tactile display allows this knowledge to be presented and is a fundamental piece of technology for the sense of touch, enabling additional research and commercial effort. While visual displays have reached the limits of the retina, the most complex haptic feedback that most people encounter is the buzz of a smartphone or click of a trackpad. This project will explore haptic gloves for robotic teleoperation tasks, and from simulation companies for emergency response training, and medical education.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.