Browsing by Author "Fantini, Mike"

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    Low-Cost Multi-Sensory Wrist Mounted Haptic Device
    (2022-04-20) Fantini, Mike; O'Malley, Marcia K
    Extended reality (XR) has been growing rapidly over the past several years, but there remains a noticeable gap in the immersiveness of the experience. This gap is due to the lack of effective haptic feedback that provides the user with a sense of touch. Haptic devices that convey such sensations have been a subject of research for several decades, but they are now entering the mainstream markets; expensive and complex systems will become affordable and accessible as the market solidifies and shifts towards the consumer. One example of a high-end wearable haptic display is Tasbi, or Tactile and Squeeze Bracelet Interface, which provides haptic feedback via a six linear resonant actuator (LRA) vibrotactile array and custom force feedback squeeze mechanism. This thesis presents a low-cost alternative to Tasbi, achieving the same haptic sensation with off-the-shelf hardware components and an Arduino-based control interface. TABIv3 utilizes eight eccentric rotating masses (ERMs) to produce vibration feedback with a servo position controlled squeeze mechanism. The vibrotactors and squeeze mechanism are controlled with simple pulse-width modulation through digital output pins on an Arduino Mega, though TABIv3 was designed to be controlled with a wide assortment of microcontrollers, not just Arduino. The vibrotactile characteristics of the ERMs showed strong vibration but lacked the fast time responses observed with Tasbi's LRAs. The position controlled servo squeeze mechanism provided effective and comfortable squeeze sensations that can be customized and scaled based on the user. Results validate that low-cost, off-the-shelf actuators, and open source microcontroller platforms can be used to achieve salient vibration and squeeze cues in a wearable device.