US Patent Issued to Carnegie Mellon University on Nov. 3 for "System and method for an interaction surface with shape-changing tactile elements" (Pennsylvania Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,783,053, issued on Nov. 3, was assigned to Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh).

"System and method for an interaction surface with shape-changing tactile elements" was invented by Craig D. Shultz (Pittsburgh) and Christopher Harrison (Pittsburgh).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A tactile interaction device uses a plurality of shape-changing tactile elements that are driven by electro-osmotic flow of a fluid. An electric filed applied to a pumping membrane by two electrodes is responsible for inducing a flow of the liquid. Multiple tactile elements can be used on the device to permit localized tactile feedback to a user. The device is ad...