Soft Haptic Actuator Based on Knitted PVC Gel Fabric

An electroactive and actuator made of knitted polyvinyl chloride (PVC) gel fabric is proposed herein. This haptic actuator consists of an upper layer, a lower layer, and fabric made by twisting long and slender PVC gel strings. The PVC gel fabric changes its shape according to the input voltage waveform, and exerts an electrostatic force between the upper and lower layers. When the applied voltage is removed, the PVC gel fabric rapidly restores to its initial configuration. Consequently, these effects generate vibrations that are sufficiently strong for human perception. In this paper, we conducted quantitative experiments to investigate the performance of our soft haptic actuator using an accelerometer and a laser scanning vibrometer. Furthermore, we performed a perceptual evaluation and the results indicate that our proposed actuator can stimulate the human skin with sufficient perceptual strength.