Paper reading #14: TeslaTouch: electrovibration for touch surfaces

References

Olivier Bau, Ivan Poupyrev, Ali Israr, and Chris Harrison.  "TeslaTouch: electrovibration for touch surfaces". UIST '10 Proceedings of the 23rd annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology.  ACM New York, NY, USA ©2010.

 Author Bios

The authors were all researchers at Disney Research, except for Chris Harrison who was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon.

Summary 

• Hypothesis - The researchers hypothesized that electrovibration can be used as an effective method for haptic feedback on touch surfaces.
• Method/Content - Electrovibration was created by placing a transparent electrode layer between a glass plate and a thin insulation layer. Tests ensued to find human thresholds of what they could detect with their fingers. Ten participants were tested for thresholds in frequency and amplitude. They were also asked to describe the "feeling" of each level. After the user study was conducted, they developed several applications to show off their findings. 
• Results - Users found that higher frequencies led to smoother surfaces, low frequencies to rough surfaces. It was also found that the effect of amplitude depended upon the underlying frequency. Increasing amplitude for a high frequency increased the level of smoothness, where a low amplitude low frequency vibration induced a perception of stickiness. It was also noted that while users could feel the sensation of friction, they were able to perceive the vibration at the same time. 
• Content - The paper introduced TeslaTouch, a method of tactile feedback that does not require moving or mechanical parts. They tested different levels of electrovibration and categorized user perceptions. They then compared this new technology with existing mechanical feedback and discussed its advantages over the latter. They then discussed possible practical uses for this technology.

 Discussion

This technology seems to be very close in concept to an idea I had a long time ago for a screenless feedback device. This paper was very important to me in relation to that; it gave me a few ideas. Other than that, I loved the idea of this technology; I believe it can be very useful and it progresses us further towards virtual reality environments; can you imagine a full-body suit of electrovibrations that could allow you to feel different sensations on different parts of your body? It would be an amazing experience.