Designing a Fingertip Haptic Device
This video shows the first fingertip haptic device created in the CHARM Lab, which used an electromagnetic actuation system to apply forces on the finger.
Project Overview
In my project, I worked together with postdoc Zhenish[bek] Zhakypov and Allison Okamura on creating a fingertip haptic device that can model a sense of touch for virtual objects. The main goal was to create a fully 3-D printed, compact design that would be more cost efficient.
Step 1: Actuator Design
The first step when creating a device was designing actuators that move the fingertip platform upon pneumatic actuation. We needed an actuator that can expand and compress a minimum of 3mm. In order to achieve this I designed 3 different designs on Solidworks and tested them with different materials using a FormLabs 3-D printer. After 2 weeks of testing, we decided to move forward with the 3 bellow design.
CAD design for 3 Bellow Actuator
CAD design for pop-up actuator
Bubble Actuators using elastic resin
Pop-Up Actuator Using Flexible Resin
3 Bellow Actuator using Flexible resin
3 Bellow Design: X-Y-Z axis movement