This research project explores how personal data in the fields of communication, health, or living could be visualized on a Smart Material Display. Through the use of smart materials, which change their properties by external stimuli such as an electric field, abstract data streams are transformed into comprehensible and clear information. The display itself should be aesthetic and thus fit into any interior. It should allow a daily overview of data, as obvious as the look in the mirror in the morning.

Modular folding principles are utilized for the data visualization and dielectric elastomers (DE), a shape changing smart material, for the actuation of the display: folding structures are linked to the activable materials of DEs to create a surface whose character can be changed generatively. This way the display looks like a moving cartography. For this purpose different basic forms are examined in the actuation and then combined into complex forms and surface animations. Through the self-sensing method the state of the surface can be recognized and controlled. Close cooperation and continuing exchange with project partners in this transdisciplinary research project is necessary. The design knowledge in information visualization and interface design of the Berlin University of the Arts and the mathematical modeling and control engineering knowledge of the TU Berlin are brought together.

Team

UdK Team (FKZ: 03Zz1047B)
Prof. Kora Kimpel, Head of the research project
Joanna Dauner, Research Assistant
Berlin University of the Arts

TUB Team (FKZ: 03ZZ1047A)
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Maas, Head of Chair Mechatronic Systems Lab
Michael Gareis, Research Assistant
Technical University of Berlin

Funder

innovation network smart³
As part of the BMBF funding program Zwanzig20