TangiBall

TangiBall presents a graspable and tangible robotic interface that can adjust shape and stiffness to recreate controllable 3D forms and forces for immersive human-machine interaction. Powered by virtual reality (VR) games, TangiBall can help people recover mobility of their upper extremities by making hand and neuro rehabilitation smart and fun.

Producing the haptic feedback in hand-scale, without increasing the fabrication cost and complexity and yet still providing enough range of force in a transparent and intuitive way.

TangiBall is constructed based on the robotic origami design methodology and embeddable, distributed fluidic actuator networks addressing the challenges of robotic haptic interface design. The device, when actuated at desired locations, self-folds to induce a large variety of shapes, for instance, a circle, rectangle, oval, pentagon and other arbitrary shapes. When squeezed, it can recreate adjustable stiffness gradients depending on the rigidity of virtual objects from soft to rigid.

During this demonstration, you will be able to grasp the Tangiball and feel the different shape modes of the device at different stiffness levels.

When combined with VR, TangiBall has a potential to be used in neurorehabilitation and help patients with stroke and injuries, restoring their muscular, perceptual and fine motor functions.

TangiBall enables patients to experience immersive, interactive and entertaining training therapy. This could encourage patients and expedite their recovery. TangiBall is a unique interface that possesses a great potential to address the socio-economic issues globally by introducing robotic haptics to the rapidly growing virtual reality in healthcare market.