Haptic Display Responsive to Touch Driven by Soft Actuator and Soft Sensor

Haptic display transfers the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to the user. This article presents a novel bidirectional haptic display responsive to touch. The device is composed of a flexible tactile sensor and tactile actuator, and the actuator is actuated according to the touch signals from the tactile sensor. The tactile sensor is a thin array of resistive type sensors that covers the top of the soft dielectric elastomer actuator array. The tactile sensor measures the normal forces (0$-$6 $N$) and positions of touches and then sends these signals to control the corresponding tactile actuator cells. The tactile actuator works within the frequency range of 0$-$300 Hz, provides up to 520 $\mu \text{m}$ of displacement and, 600 mN of normal force, much greater than the human hand threshold (50 mN). And thus, the device can transfer different feelings to users. In this research, we develop and evaluate a stand-alone bidirectional haptic display. Then, we took the psychophysical test and introduced the master—slave system whereby the master device controls the slave device depending on the master input.

I. Introduction

The SKIN is the largest organ in the human body, and thus, tactile sensation plays a very important role in daily activities. It receives environmental signals, such as humidity, heat, pain, pressure, and protests inside organs [1]. In addition to the traditional functions of the skin, in modern technology, the tactile function may serve as a cornerstone in the fields of robotics, virtual reality, and medical engineering [2]–[4]. Tactile display is a significant communication device that conveys intellectual information in the form of skin stimulation.