Transparent and Soft Haptic Actuator for Interaction With Flexible/Deformable Devices

This study presents a transparent and soft haptic actuator based on an electroactive polymer designed to create abundant haptic sensations in flexible/deformable next-generation devices and to convey them to users. The haptic sensations are created in the form of vibrations and vary depending on the amplitude and frequency of the vibrations. The haptic actuator consists of a transparent and soft dielectric layer and two transparent and soft ionic conductive layers. The dielectric layer is sandwiched between the two ionic conductive layers, and is compressed in the thickness direction when an electric field is applied to the two ionic conductive layers. When the applied electric field is removed, the proposed haptic actuators are rapidly restored to their initial configuration. Owing to this effect, the actuator can easily create vibrations that are sufficiently strong for human perception. In this study, three different dielectric elastomers (silicone rubber, poly urethane, and acrylic polymer) are used for the dielectric layer. Experiments are conducted to investigate the haptic performance of the proposed soft vibrotactile actuators using an accelerometer. In the case of the silicone rubber-based actuator, the measured acceleration at the resonant frequency (80 Hz) is 1.408 g (g = 9.8 m/s(2)) and the response time is approximately 2.8 ms. Furthermore, the perceived intensity of the stimuli generated by the proposed actuator is verified by perceptual experiments. The results indicate that the proposed actuator can selectively stimulate human mechanoreceptors with sufficient perceptual strength.