A Promising Method for Touch-typing Keyboard Rendering

We have developed a novel button click rendering mechanism based on active lateral force feedback. The effect can be localized because electroadhesion between a finger and a surface can be localized. Psychophysical experiments were conducted to evaluate the quality of a rendered button click, which subjects judged to be acceptable. Both the experiment results and the subjects' comments confirm that this button click rendering mechanism has the ability to generate a range of realistic button click sensations that could match subjects' different preferences. We can thus generate a button click on a flat surface without macroscopic motion of the surface in the lateral or normal direction, and we can localize this haptic effect to an individual finger. This mechanism is promising for touch-typing keyboard rendering.