Exploring Bio-Inspired Soft Fluidic Actuators and Sensors for the Design of Shape Changing Tangible User Interfaces.
Kristian Gohlke's PhD investigates fluid actuators (also known as soft robotics), mainly in form of pneumatically actuated soft or malleable material mechanisms as well as the use, application potentials and the limitations of such systems for interaction design. By contributing to a novel category of interfaces that are malleable, inherently capable of isotropic shape change and mechanically compliant, the research further intends to question the fundamental design paradigm of current technological artifacts that are commonly characterized by fixed form factors, rigid mechanisms and static enclosures.
This research has overlapped with some work in the RethiCare project and in FluidData, which looks at application areas for pneumatically actuated shape-change through inflated sheet materials, with Hannes Waldschütz as main researcher. key publications:
- Gohlke, Sattler, Hornecker. AirPinch – An Inflatable Touch Fader with Pneumatic Tactile Feedback. Proc. of ACM TEI 2022. Article 64, 1–6. ACM DL
- Gohlke, Hornecker. A Stretch-Flexible Textile Multitouch Sensor for User Input on Inflatable Membrane Structures & Non-Planar Surfaces. Adjunct Proc. of ACM UIST 2018. ACM DL
- Gohlke. Exploring Bio-Inspired Soft Fluidic Actuators and Sensors for the Design of Shape Changing Tangible User Interfaces. ACM TEI 2017 Graduate Student Consortium, ACM DL.
- Gohlke, Hornecker, Sattler. Pneumatibles – Exploring Soft Robotic Actuators for the Design of User Interfaces with Pneumotactile Feedback. Proc. of ACM TEI 2016, pp. 308-315. author pdf and ACM DL