A Review of Surface Haptics:Enabling Tactile Effects on Touch Surfaces
This is an incremental review summarizing existing research for researchers and developers in human-machine interaction.
The paper reviews surface haptics technology, covering machine haptics, human perception, applications, and challenges, with a focus on vibrotactile, electrostatic, and ultrasonic actuation methods.
We review the current technology underlying surface haptics that converts passive touch surfaces to active ones (machine haptics), our perception of tactile stimuli displayed through active touch surfaces (human haptics), their potential applications (human-machine interaction), and finally the challenges ahead of us in making them available through commercial systems. This review primarily covers the tactile interactions of human fingers or hands with surface-haptics displays by focusing on the three most popular actuation methods: vibrotactile, electrostatic, and ultrasonic.