Absolute and discrimination thresholds of a flexible texture display

摘要

We present a flexible tactile interface, FlexTouch, for simulating texture of fabrics. The FlexTouch displays virtual texture on fingertips based on electrovibration principle. To exam human factors in using FlexTouch, we measured absolute detection thresholds of input voltage with respect to frequencies ranging from 30 to 300 Hz. The measured thresholds formed a U-shaped curve indicating a minimum value of 23 Vpp at the frequency of 169 Hz. We then measured the just-noticeable-differences (JNDs) of the voltage amplitudes ranging from 71 to 225 V at the most sensitive frequency, i.e. 169 Hz. The result suggests that the JNDs depend linearly on the amplitude of stimulus signal. These measures provide guidelines to design interfaces and applications using FlexTouch.