Haptic Aided Soft-touch Multi-material Product Design

Abstract

In recent years, thermoplastic elastomers (TPE) based multi-material molded products have found wide spread uses in various industries and every-day life. Today's computer-aided design (CAD) tools are very cumbersome in designing multi-material parts. This paper proposes a top-down design methodology to facilitate the design of multi-material products. Haptic technology is employed to enhance efficiency and intuitiveness of the designing process. Further more, some product properties such as stiffness can be readily evaluated in a haptic system. The proposed methodology is illustrated through a case study: the design of a toothbrush