Tangible Drops

A Visio-Tactile Display Using Actuated Liquid-Metal Droplets

 Overview

This project proposed Tangible Drops, a visio-tactile display that for the first time provides physical visualization and tactile feedback using a planar liquid interface. It presents digital information interactively by tracing dynamic patterns on horizontal flat surfaces using liquid metal drops on a programmable electrode array. It provides tactile feedback with directional information in the 2D vector plane using linear locomotion and/or vibration of the liquid metal drops. We demonstrate move, oscillate, merge, split and dispense-from-reservoir functions of the liquid metal drops by consuming low power (450 mW per electrode) and low voltage (8--15 V). We reported on results of our empirical study with 12 participants on tactile feedback using 8 mm diameter drops, which indicated that Tangible Drops can convey tactile sensations such as changing speed, varying direction and controlled oscillation with no visual feedback. We explored the design space and demonstrated the applications of Tangible Drops, and showed potential future applications for the technique.

 Working Principles

1 Linear 2D Locomotion by Continuous Electrowetting

2 Vertical Deformation and Vibration by AC Electrowetting

 System Demonstration

Locomotion drawing the letter 'H'

Vibration Mode Control

Tactile Feedback by Liquid Metal

 Main Video

 Publications

Paper Deepak Ranjan Sahoo, Timothy Neate, Yutaka Tokuda, Jennifer Pearson, Simon Robinson, Sriram Subramanian, Matt Jones. 2018. Tangible Drops: A Visio-Tactile Display Using Actuated Liquid-Metal Droplets. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI'18), pp.1--14. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173751  
PDF [1.96MB]

Demo Deepak Ranjan Sahoo, Timothy Neate, Yutaka Tokuda, Jennifer Pearson, Simon Robinson, Sriram Subramanian, Matt Jones. 2017. JDLED: Towards Visio-Tactile Displays Based on Electrochemical Locomotion of Liquid-Metal Janus Droplets. Adjunct Publication of the 30th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST'17 demo), pp.67--69. https://doi.org/10.1145/3131785.3131793  
PDF [6.84MB]