Vibrotactile Rendering for a Traveling Vibrotactile Wave Based on a Haptic Processor

Mobile device users can now experience diverse graphical content ranging from a simple static object to an object having complex dynamic behavior. A user who manipulates and plays with such “objects” wants to haptically “feel” the presence of a static object or the motion of a dynamic object. To satisfy this demand, we previously proposed a vibrotactile rendering method based on a vibrotactile traveling wave. Although the proposed method can haptically simulate the dynamic behavior of a target object, it is not easy to delicately generate the traveling vibrotactile wave. The reason is that the sampling rate of the haptic loop in the system determines the performance of the traveling vibrotactile wave. In this study, we develop a haptic processor that can control multiple motors, and furthermore we discuss how we could create traveling vibrotactile waves in mobile devices.