Toward quality texture display: vibrotactile stimuli to modify material roughness sensations

For industrial purposes such as product design, texture displays should deliver a quality sense of touch to users. We have developed a vibrotactile texture display that uses real materials such as fabric, wood, and leather to enable the presentation of quality textures to users. By applying two types of vibrotactile stimuli to users’ finger pads through the materials, their fine and macro roughness sensations can be selectively modified while maintaining their original perceptual characteristics. This approach is effective for different types of textures such as paper, wood, leather, and cloth unless they possess strong damping properties that may attenuate the vibratory stimuli applied through them.