CAREER: Multi-length scale patterning in switchable friction for rendering new textures in surface haptics

Smartphones have strong video and audio capabilities. However, they are less capable when it comes to providing touch (haptic) feedback, which is limited to simple things like vibrating or simulating keyboard clicks. How to recreate the haptic richness of everyday objects, such as rubbing a cotton shirt or feeling a fine wood finish in furniture, is an open problem in building better user interfaces for phones and other devices. This project will develop methods to provide richer haptic feedback by engineering textures at multiple scales, ranging in size from microscopic to visible to the naked eye, inspired by the fact that part of why objects feel the way they do is because they have distinctive textures at these different scales. The benefits of richer haptics are broad. Beyond improving smartphones, better haptic hardware could make better medical training simulations, improve prosthetics, or make virtual reality more immersive. Further, for people who are blind, haptic devices are an important replacement for screens or pictures. This project will examine how patterns at the sizes of microns to centimeters can improve the strength of haptic feedback by modulating friction, and increase the number of distinctive feelings, also known as dimensionality. The research team will fabricate devices with patterns at multiple length scales by using microfabrication techniques; the ability to dynamically change these patterns is facilitated by a new class of polymer-based actuators. These devices will then be tested in a series of tasks with human participants to quantitatively determine the strength of stimulus and the degree of variety they can perceive. Higher level tasks will also be tested, like integration with a visual display, which also helps to disseminate the basic knowledge from this project to other applications and fields. Complementing the research activities, the project will create classroom modules on human centered design and human factors for undergraduates in physical sciences and explore opportunities for using the new haptic capabilities to better-support STEM education for blind and low-vision people. 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. NSF Award ID: 2543315 | Program: 01002627DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT,01002930DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT,01003031DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT | Principal Investigator: Charles Dhong | Institution: University of Delaware, NEWARK, DE | Award Amount: $407,383 View on NSF Award Search: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/show-award/?AWD_ID=2543315 View on Research.gov: https://www.research.gov/awardapi-service/v1/awards/2543315.html