optiElastic

ABOUT:
This work presents the design and fabrication process of integrating optical fiber into pneumatically driven soft composite shape changing interfaces. It is part of a collaboration with Jifei Ou and Lining Yao at the Tangible Media Group at MIT Media Lab under the guidance of Prof. Hiroshi Ishii.

PAPER:
Lining Yao, Jifei Ou, Daniel Tauber, and Hiroshi Ishii. 2014. Integrating optical waveguides for display and sensing on pneumatic soft shape changing interfaces.

PRESENTATION:
UIST’14 Conference, Honolulu Hawaii

YEAR:
2013-2014

Categories:
IX/UI
Research

This research presents the design and fabrication process of integrating optical fiber into pneumatically driven soft composite shape changing interfaces. Embedded optical waveguides can provide both sensing and illumination, and adds one more building block to the design of designing soft pneumatic shape changing interfaces.

The prototype pictured above is a dynamic texture display for both visual and haptic information. It is made of five by five individually controllable cells that can light up through an optical waveguide composite. It can simulate variable degrees of expansion and contraction through pneumatic actuation.