Semi-plenary talk: Transition: From stiffness to softness

Summary form only given. This talk introduces a historical change of haptics research based on personal experience. For a long time, researchers had proposed various force or tactile display devices which need be placed on a table. The devices were mainly composed of very stiff supporting structure and rigid actuating/ sensing components such as electric motors, piezoelectric actuators, force/torque sensors and etc. With recent development of visual display devices, haptic interfaces have been investigated for interacting with portable touchscreen devices. For installation of haptic interface into touchscreen devices, the haptic components need to be miniaturized and sometimes they have to be transparent. Now, we have more challenging issues since flexible electronic devices and wearable devices are rapidly arousing people's interest in the market as well as a field of research. In order to apply haptics technology to future flexible interfaces, we need to consider new appearance of actuators and sensors. This talk starts from brief description of compact tactile displays and haptic interfaces for touchscreens, and mainly introduces current research activities for flexible and transparent haptic interface.