Encoding and presentation of friction sensation using a mechano-tactile display

We sense tactile sensation by combining two types of antennae receptors. Friction is an important tactile sensation for perceiving sticking or slipping of the object surface in contact with the skin and it is mainly sensed by Pacinian corpuscles under the skin which detect high-frequency vibrations. In this work, tactile samples that can present different friction sensations were fabricated in order to control friction sensations by selectively stimulating Pacinian corpuscles. In the first experiment, perception tests were conducted using the fabricated samples. The results showed that participants tended to evaluate friction sensations in two opposite ways according to the increase of stimulation frequency on a finger. In the second experiment, the surfaces of the fabricated samples were encoded into voltage and frequency signals by using a tactile sensor and the relationship between friction sensations and encoded signals was analyzed. It indicated that the displacement of the skin had a correlation to the friction sensation.