USA as Represented by Secretary of the Navy

Engineering Acoustics Incorporated

Thomas H Ensign

Gary A Zets

Bruce J P Mortimer

Claude C Sims

Frank D Chapman

A vibrotactile transducer provides a point-like vibrational stimulus to the body of a user in response to an electrical input. The apparatus includes a housing held in contact with the skin and a moving mechanical contactor protruding through in an opening in said housing and preloaded into skin. The contactor is attached to a torroidal moving magnet assembly suspended by springs in a magnetic circuit assembly consisting of a housing containing a pair of electrical coils. The mass of the magnet/contactor assembly and the compliance of the spring are chosen so that the electromechanical resonance of the motional masses, when loaded by a typical skin site on the human body, are in a frequency band where the human body is most sensitive to vibrational stimuli. By varying the drive signal to the vibrotactile transducer and activating one or more transducer at specific location on the body using an appropriate choice of signal characteristics and/or modulation, different information can be provided to a user in a intuitive, body referenced manner.

Method and apparatus for generating a vibrational stimulus

An acoustic transducer for simultaneously producing broadband sound sources n the conventional and overtone resonance modes. Two sets of ceramic and aluminum discs are fixed adjacent each other with the ceramic discs of each set facing one another across an air gap. By selection of respective relative diameters and thicknesses for the ceramic and aluminum discs, the transducer exhibits dual resonance output signals when excited by an input voltage.

Growing community of inventors

Winter Park, FL, United States of America

Thomas H Ensign