Flat Panel Haptics: Embedded Electroosmotic Pumps for Scalable Shape Displays
Craig Shultz, Chris Harrison

CHI 2023: The ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Session: Touch & forces?

Flat touch interfaces, with or without screens, pervade the modern world. However, their haptic feedback is minimal, prompting much research into haptic and shapechanging display technologies which are selfcontained, fast acting, and offer millimeters of displacement while only being only millimeters thick. We present a new, miniaturizable type of shapechanging display using embedded electroosmotic pumps (EEOPs). Our pumps, controlled and powered directly by applied voltage, are 1.5mm in thickness, and allow complete stackups under 5mm. Nonetheless, they can move their entire volume's worth of fluid in 1 second, and generate pressures of +/50kPa, enough to create dynamic, millimeterscale tactile features on a surface that can withstand typical interaction forces ( 1N). These are the requisite technical ingredients to enable, for example, a popup keyboard on a flat smartphone. We experimentally quantify the mechanical and psychophysical performance of our displays and conclude with a set of example interfaces.

Web:: https://programs.sigchi.org/chi/2023/...

Prerecorded presentation videos for papers at CHI 2023