Mudpad: Fluid Haptics for Touch Surfaces
What is MudPad?
Our main objective is to explore the possibilities given by localized active haptic feedback on a touch surface.
Since the introduction of the iPhone touchscreens became very common and most people probably have used one by now. While using a touchscreen is often described as enjoyable due to direct interaction techniques, such screens also lack tactile feedback.
Over the last couple years a few mobile phones with tactile feedback were released. But as of yet they only provide feedback in a global manner applied to the whole screen. Recently, first prototypes with localized tactile texture displays were presented such as
TeslaTouch by Olivier Bau et al. and also by companies such as
Toshiba and
Nokia.
With MudPad, we take a different approach and introduce a device which is able to give
localized active haptic feedback by using magnetorheological (MR) fluid and an array of electromagnets to actuate the fluid. The fluid is "smart" because one of its properties - its viscosity - can be controlled by a magnetic field. MudPad is covered by a pouch filled with MR fluid.
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| off state: free flowing particles |
It consists of carbonyl iron powder dissolved in glycerin. The viscosity of this fluid, when in off state, depends on the percentage of iron powder but is generally rather low (comparable to oil). When it is exposed to a magnetic field it immediately turns stiff.
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| on state with aligned particles |
The reaction time of the fluid is within 2ms thereby making it suitable for real-time interactions.
The current prototype is built on 84 electromagnets that are arranged in a 12x7 array. Each magnet can be controlled individually to create a tactile sensation at that specific location only.
Pictures
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| Tablet sized prototype of MudPad |
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| Array of electromagnets |
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| Small scale prototype of MudPad (one button controlled by one magnet) |
People involved
Supervised by
Publications
2011
 | Yvonne Jansen,
Thorsten Karrer, and Jan Borchers.
MudPad: Tactile Feedback for Touch Surfaces.
In CHI EA '11: Proceedings of the twenty-ninth annual SIGCHI conference on
Human factors in computing systems (to appear), New York, NY, USA, 2011.
ACM Press.
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| Yvonne Jansen.
MudPad – Localized Tactile Feedback on Multi Touch Surfaces.
Master's thesis, RWTH Aachen University, 2011.
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2010
 | Yvonne Jansen,
Thorsten Karrer, and Jan Borchers.
MudPad: Tactile Feedback and Haptic Texture Overlay for Touch Surfaces.
In ITS '10: Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive
Tabletops and Surfaces, pages 11-14, New York, NY, USA, November 2010.
ACM.
Best ITS 2010 Note Award,  .
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| Yvonne Jansen,
Thorsten Karrer, and Jan Borchers.
MudPad - A Tactile Memory Game.
In ITS '10: Adjunct Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on
Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces (Best Demo Award), New York, NY, USA,
November 2010. ACM.
 .
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| Yvonne Jansen,
Thorsten Karrer, and Jan Borchers.
MudPad: Localized Tactile Feedback on Touch Surfaces.
In UIST 2010 Extended Abstracts, New York, NY, October 2010.
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| Yvonne Jansen.
Mudpad: Fluid Haptics for Multitouch Surfaces.
In CHI '10: Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems,
pages 4351-4356, New York, NY, USA, 2010. ACM Press.
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Demonstrations
2010
- Ars Electronica, Sep. 2-4, Linz, Austria.
- UIST 2010. 23rd ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology. Oct. 3-6, New York, NY, USA.
