Tactile Pattern Display (26012/27004/27005/27025)

Tactile Pattern Display (26012/27004/27005/27025)

INVENTOR: J. Edward Colgate, Michael Peshkin, John Glassmire, Laura Winfield

INVENTION: While far more advanced than mechanical buttons, switches, and knobs, devices like touch screens and touch pads fail to provide (despite their name) the sense of touch. They have no shape, no texture and no clickiness. They are dead to the finger and as such, must provide information with visual graphics or sound. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to actually feel something, not just to see or hear it? This is what the TPaD enables.

The TPaD is a novel technology for creating the sense of touch in an interface. It does so through variations in surface friction. The TPaD surface friction can be adjusted from bare glass, which has rather high friction against human skin, to something more like an air hockey table. Friction levels in-between can be achieved, and the friction can be changed rapidly – in a matter of milliseconds.

The TPaD can be used to create “virtual” interfaces that one can actually feel. For instance, virtual knobs on a touch screen can have shape, texture, and even click as they are turned.

The TPaD has no visible or audible texture, nor any other built-in tactile features. Yet, a variety of texture sensations can be created on the TPaD, including smooth bumps, a file grating, rough sandpaper, and low profile edges. The TPaD provides a user feedback when s/he uses a touch pad to control a device. For example a virtual scrollbar control has been implemented such that the user’s finger position on the TPaD controls the position of the scrollbar. As the user moves the scrollbar, s/he feels ridges, and the more the scrollbar is moved, the more closely packed are the ridges.

The TPaD won the “Best Demonstration Award” at World Haptics 2007 in Tsukuba, Japan.

Tactile Pattern Display (26012/27004/27005/27025)

INVENTOR: J. Edward Colgate, Michael Peshkin, John Glassmire, Laura Winfield

INVENTION: While far more advanced than mechanical buttons, switches, and knobs, devices like touch screens and touch pads fail to provide (despite their name) the sense of touch. They have no shape, no texture and no clickiness. They are dead to the finger and as such, must provide information with visual graphics or sound. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to actually feel something, not just to see or hear it? This is what the TPaD enables.

The TPaD is a novel technology for creating the sense of touch in an interface. It does so through variations in surface friction. The TPaD surface friction can be adjusted from bare glass, which has rather high friction against human skin, to something more like an air hockey table. Friction levels in-between can be achieved, and the friction can be changed rapidly – in a matter of milliseconds.

The TPaD can be used to create “virtual” interfaces that one can actually feel. For instance, virtual knobs on a touch screen can have shape, texture, and even click as they are turned.

The TPaD has no visible or audible texture, nor any other built-in tactile features. Yet, a variety of texture sensations can be created on the TPaD, including smooth bumps, a file grating, rough sandpaper, and low profile edges. The TPaD provides a user feedback when s/he uses a touch pad to control a device. For example a virtual scrollbar control has been implemented such that the user’s finger position on the TPaD controls the position of the scrollbar. As the user moves the scrollbar, s/he feels ridges, and the more the scrollbar is moved, the more closely packed are the ridges.

The TPaD won the “Best Demonstration Award” at World Haptics 2007 in Tsukuba, Japan.



Figure 1: Surface Friction Patterns


APPLICATIONS: Automotive instrument panels (dashboards, consoles, etc.), automotive door keypads (both visible and disguised), touch screens, touch pads, wireless PDA’s, other haptic interfaces.

STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT: The TPaD has been implemented in a variety of embodiments to generate numerous patterns. One such embodiment is briefly described below in Fig. 2.



Figure 2: The Piezoelectric Bending Element Haptic Display modeled above comprises a sleek, 25 mm diameter, 1 mm thick piezo-ceramic disk epoxied to a glass disk of equal diameter and 1.6 mm thickness. Use of glass enables surface friction to vary over a large range. Finally, this design eliminates the audible noise of moving parts.

Inventor(s): J. Edward Colgate, Michael Peshkin, John Glassmire, Laura Winfield

Type of Offer: Licensing



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