With the emergence of pen-enabled tablets and mobile devices, stylus-based interaction has
been receiving increasing attention. Unfortunately, styluses available in the market today are all passive
instruments that are primarily used for writing and pointing. In this paper, we describe a novel stylus
capable of displaying certain vibrotactile and inertial haptic effects to the user. Our stylus is equipped with two vibration actuators at the ends, which are used to create a tactile sensation of up and down movement along the stylus. The stylus is also embedded with a DC motor, which is used to create a sense of bidirectional rotational torque about the long axis of the pen. Through two psychophysical experiments, we show that, when driven with carefully selected timing and actuation patterns, our haptic stylus can convey movement and rotational torque information to the user. Results from a further psychophysical experiment provide insight on how the shape of the actuation patterns affects the perception of rotational torque. Finally, experimental results from our interactive pen-based game show that our haptic stylus is effective in practical settings.
Authors: Atakan Arasan, Cagatay Basdogan, T. Metin Sezgin