Design and development of a braille display using micro actuators driven by ER suspension

Abstract

ER suspension behaves like a Bingham fluid having yield stress, which can be rapidly changed in a reversible manner by applying electric field. By taking the advantage, Braille display using micro actuators driven by the suspension is developed. The micro actuators are fabricated by photolithography and allocated three dimensionally based on requirement specification which are determined experimentally. The system is integrated in small size and has high reliability since the valves consist of no moving components. In order to evaluate actuation of a micro actuator controlled by the valves, an experiment for displaying six tactile pins is performed.