Tactile Bump Display Suitable for Touch Panel using Electro-rheological Fluid

触控面板现在广泛应用于智能手机等。虽然由于用户界面设计的灵活性使设备具有很高的功能，但它却给用户带来了触觉反馈，从而导致错误的操作。因此，本研究利用胶体ER流体开发了一种适合与触摸面板集成的触觉碰撞显示器。电流变流体是一种通过施加直流电压改变流变特性，甚至由液体变为固体的功能流体。所研制的触觉显示器主要由电极板、电流变电流流体和绝缘膜组成。电极板具有3x3电极对矩阵，间隔15mm。通过对电极对施加直流电压，电流变换器流体可以在相应的电极对周围变为固态。然后，当用户通过薄膜触摸相应区域时，可以感受到物理碰撞。实验结果表明，采用凸形显示，大大提高了按按钮操作的精度。

A touch panel is now widely used in smart phones etc. Although it enables the devices to have high functionalities due to the flexibility of user interface design, it lucks tactile feedback to the users which causes wrong operations. Hence, this study developed a tactile bump display, suitable for integration with touch panels, using colloidal ER fluid. The ER fluid is a kind of functional fluid which changes rheological characteristics, even from liquid to solid, by applying DC voltage. The developed tactile display is mainly composed of an electrode board, ER fluid and an insulative film. The electrode board has 3x3 electrode pair matrix with 15 mm intervals. By applying DC voltage to an electrode pair, the ER fluid may become solid state at around the corresponding electrode pair. Then, a user can feel a physical bump when touching the corresponding area via the film. As a result of experiment, the accuracy of button pushing operation is greatly improved with the bump display.