Conceptual Design of Soft Thin Self-sensing Vibrotactile Actuator

This paper proposed a conceptual design of a soft thin self-sensing vibrotactile actuator, which can measure applied pressure and can generate haptic information. The proposed self-sensing actuator is composed of two electrodes and a bi-convex patterned PVC gel. A PVC gel, which is one of the dielectric electro-active polymers (EAPs), was fabricated by solution-casting with a wavy-patterned mold to improve sensing and vibrotactile actuation performances. The results show that the proposed self-sensing actuator effectively measures applied pressure, and generates vibration force to stimulate human mechanoreceptors.