Conceptual design of mniniature tunable stiffness display using MR fluids

Abstract

Stiffness information is one of the important factors to naturally and intuitively interact with electronic devices and displays. For small-sized electronics, such as hand-held devices, the size of haptic modules is a key limiting factor, and it must be minimized. This paper proposes a concept of miniature and tunable stiffness display an aim to design a miniature device conveying stiffness information. The proposed device is based on Magneto-Rheological(MR) fluids, and its stiffness can be varied by activating the MR fluids with the magnetic field produced by the solenoid, . The proposed stiffness display is composed of three main parts such as an elastic returning part (providing elastic force), a stiffness tuning part (generating resistive force), and a PDMS membrane reservoir part (serving as a repository for the MR fluids). The use of MR fluids in the haptic display allows us to miniature it by eliminating bulky electrical and mechanical components in conventional haptic devices. ©2009 IEEE.