Interactive haptic display based on soft actuator and soft sensor

This paper demonstrates a new haptic display based on soft actuator and soft sensor. The device consists of an array rigid coupling actuator and an array tactile sensor which configured sensor located on the top of actuator. The actuator includes a frame with rigid coupling made by silicone and a dielectric elastomer actuator(DEA). The movement of the DEA is transferred to touch pad via rigid coupling. Thus, it provides a soft, comport touch feeling and eliminates the danger of applying high voltage to the human skin. The actuator can work at a wide range frequency of 0-150 Hz and produce sufficient force of 50 mN over the human hand threshold. The tactile sensor can measure the pressure, locate the objects and send the feedback signals to control the actuator. In this work, a 8×12 haptic tactile display is made with high resolution. In addition, the high voltage signal processing also developed to generate variable 0-3.5 kV, and can control individual cell by using the dynamic scanning actuation algorithm. Then, it can display any shape such as a circle, a smile/sad face, a star, etc. In the future, we will build the 'emotion touch pad' system which can transfer a person's emotion to another one via internet.