Design Procedure and Simulation of a Novel Multi-Modal Tactile Display Device for Biomedical Applications

Tactile display is recently attracting much attention in the field of human computer interaction. There is a strong need for such a device especially for application in which the touch feeling is lost, such as surgeons willing to feel the tissue hardness during laparoscopic surgeries. In this paper, a novel multi-modal tactile display device which can display both surface shape and stiffness of an object is introduced. The conceptual design is built upon using two springs, made of Shape Memory Alloys-SMA, to control both shape and stiffness. The design parameters of this device are selected based on the spatial resolution of human finger and the stiffness range of the soft tissue. The display device is simulated using Finite Element Method, FEM, to study the effect of design parameters on the resulting stiffness. The results showed that the device can display stiffness of an object independent of its shape display. Simulation results confirmed that the stiffness display is stable when applying force by the finger during indentation for feeling stiffness, since the total stiffness error does not exceed 1.2%.