Device for Transmitting Information to a Living Being

• US 20120212442A1
• Filed: 10/21/2010
• Published: 08/23/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/30/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Kagawa University, SCA Corporation
• Original Assignee: Kagawa University, SCA Corporation
• Inventors: Uchida, Keiji, Sawada, Hideyuki
• Application Number:
  US13/504,087
• Publication Number:
  US 20120212442A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/173
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04809 Textured surface identifying touch areas, e.g. overlay structure for a virtual keyboard
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/016 Input arrangements with force or tactile feedback as computer generated output to the user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/041 Digitisers, e.g. for touch screens or touch pads, characterised by the transducing means

Abstract

In a device for transmitting information to a living being, an information related to a display is transmitted to a tactile sense of the living being touching a shape-memory alloy arranged on a display panel, by motion of expansion and contraction of the shape-memory alloy, without obstructing the visibility of the display panel. The device includes a transparent sheet-like tactile perceptual unit, arranged on the display panel, and a signal generating unit, which generates a signal voltage for driving the tactile perceptual unit. The signal generating unit and the display panel are connected to the control unit. The shape-memory alloy attached to the tactile perceptual unit transmits the information to the living being by contracting the shape-memory alloy in response to an application of a signal voltage, with relation to the display of the display panel.

Claims

1. A device for transmitting information, which device transmits an information of tactile sense to a living being touching a shape-memory alloy, by motion of expansion and contraction of the shape-memory alloy generated by applying voltage to the shape-memory alloy,

the device comprising:

a tactile perceptual unit arranged on a display panel which displays visual information, and

a signal generating unit which generates a signal voltage for driving the tactile perceptual unit, wherein;

the tactile perceptual unit has a transparent plate arranged on a part of a surface of the display panel and the shape-memory alloy attached to the transparent plate,

the shape-memory alloy, having a thin wire-like form, is in a relaxed state at a time that the signal voltage is not applied and is touchable by the living being through a protective cover or not, and transmits the information of the tactile sense to the living being touching the shape-memory alloy through the protective cover or not, by contracting the shape-memory alloy in response to an application of the signal voltage from the signal generating unit to the shape-memory alloy, and

the signal generating unit generates the signal voltage related to the displaying image on the display panel.

2. The device according to claim 1, wherein the shape-memory alloy is used in a portion touched by the living being and, in the other portion, a micro wire is substituted for the shape-memory alloy.

3. The device according to claim 2, wherein the transparent plate of the unit for transmitting the tactile sense has a hole in a predetermined position,

the shape-memory alloy is arranged so that the shape-memory alloy is suspended across the hole of the transparent plate in the relaxed state,

both ends of the shape-memory alloy are connected to the micro wire, and

each micro wire is extended to both ends of the transparent plate, and connected to the signal generating unit at both ends.

4. The device according to claim 3, wherein the holes of the transparent plate are arranged in series, and the ends of the shape-memory alloy, which is suspended across the hole, are connected to the micro wire,

a plurality of the shape-memory alloys are connected in series by the micro wire.

5. The device according to claim 3, in case that the tactile perceptual unit has a protective cover, the protective cover is transparent and covers both the shape-memory alloy and the micro wire so as to sandwich the shape-memory alloy and the micro wire between the transparent plate and the transparent protective cover.

6. The device according to claim 5, wherein the transparent protective cover has the hole having the same shape in a position corresponding to the hole of the transparent plate, and the hole exposes the shape-memory alloy.

7. The device according to claim 3, wherein the micro wire is a metal line made of gold, silver, copper, aluminum or tungsten, and each micro wire is connected to the shape-memory alloy by welding at both edges of the hole respectively.

8. The device according to claim 7, wherein the overlap region between the shape-memory alloy and the micro wire, connected by welding, is set within a range from 0.2 mm to 0.4 mm.

9. The device according to claim 3, wherein when the display panel is a touch panel having a touch switch,

the signal generating unit drives the tactile perceptual unit, in response to an input motion by the living being touching to the tactile perceptual unit which is arranged on the touch switch.

10. The device according to claim 9, wherein a piece of transparent plate with a shape smaller than the hole is fixed to a part of the shape-memory alloy suspended across the hole of the transparent plate.