Soft wearable non-vibratory tactile displays

This paper presents a new type of wearable finger-tip tactile displays aimed at providing electrically tuneable tactile stimuli interactions with soft bodies. This is achieved by a new actuation technology based on soft electroactive polymers, capable of generating large and quasi-static displacements at moderate forces. This is intentionally different from the high-frequency small vibrations at high forces that are used in several state-of-the-art tactile displays. We describe the ongoing development of devices having a volume of 20×12×23 mm and weigh of only 6 g on finger, which can render electrically tuneable displacements of up to 3.5 mm and forces of up to 0.8 N.