A skin-integrated multimodal haptic interface for immersive tactile feedback

Abstract

Haptic feedback can be used to improve immersion in virtual and augmented reality systems. However, wearable haptic devices typically provide limited feedback, such as simple vibration, and are restricted to a narrow bandwidth of tuneable frequency or to single tactile perceptions. Here, we report a skin-integrated wireless haptic interface that is based on actuator arrays and offers multimodal and complex feedback mechanisms. Different feedback modes—mechanical, electrotactile and thermal—in the interface are used to selectively activate different cutaneous receptors, providing users with diverse haptic sensations. The selective stimulating mechanism is inspired by the neural tactile sensing system and can reproduce tactile information of fine roughness, macro roughness, slipperiness, force and temperature.