IIT Madras' touchscreen technology enables users to feel textures

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  • 2 years ago

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras developed a brand-new touchscreen technology known as the “iTad” (interactive touch active display). Sharp edges, switches, and smooth, and gritty on-screen textures can all be produced by the researchers using the software. Users may feel various textures in the images as their finger moves across the screen.

M Manivannan, of the applied mechanics department at IIT Madras, oversaw the research on iTad. In order to advance this technology, Touchlab researchers have also been collaborating with Merkel Haptics, a start-up housed at the IIT Madras Research Park.
The iTad doesn’t have any moving parts; instead, it includes a built-in multi-touch sensor that tracks finger movement on the screen while the software modifies surface friction. As the fingers move across a smooth plane, the software regulates local electric fields and friction through a physical phenomenon known as “electroadhesion.” Automotive, consumer electronics, digital signs, home automation, medical, industrial, gaming, and assistance for the blind are just a few of the important industries where this technology is used.

The touch-enabled surfaces from iTad are capable of both receiving input and returning feedback. Touch feedback is now only available as “vibrotactile” vibrations that consumers experience on their mobile phones. Devices that provide alerts and notifications to cell phones use resonating voice coils. The fully integrated iTad solution, on the other hand, uses a single controller and solid-state actuator. On large and curved screens in particular, textures and haptic effects can be synchronised across size, shape, and surface. A solution with several applications is iTad. Each texture effect produced by iTad can be felt with a finger swipe. Manivannan described how “iTad” is different from modern technology by saying: “Currently computer touchscreens can only sense the position of your fingers on the screen, but offers no feedback. When we add feedback, the interaction with computers becomes experiential. iTad is unlike anything else on the market today because it combines multi-touch sensing with haptics on the same layer.”

Mayank Tewari

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