Measuring of Wearable Haptic Interaction : Design and Characterization of novel 3D structured Electronic Skin

Abstract: Haptic garments provide a medium for generating mediated social touch. Though,not everything is understood about how the forces from the haptic garments affect theusers. To better understand how the haptic garments impact the user, the first step is tomeasure the forces from the haptic garment. Therefore, this thesis created two electronicskins with a novel 3D structure to detect and measure the normal and shear forces thatthe haptic garments exert and some social touch gestures. Both E-skins differed in size andsensing material, one used Force Sensitive Resistors and the other used Velostat and coppertape. The different sensors were evaluated and it was concluded that the Force SensitiveResistors E-skin experienced less hysteresis and was more stable than the Velostat E-skin,two characteristics found to be important for haptic garments measurements. Though, theVelostat E-skin shows potential for its novel shear force distinction. The potential of theE-skin motivates further development and research in the area of 3D structured E-skins.