Skin-integrated stretchable actuators toward skin-compatible haptic feedback and closed-loop human-machine interactions

This work presents stretchable soft actuators for haptic feedback that match the skin's perception range, spatial resolution, and stretchability. Pressure-amplification structures are fabricated using a scalable self-assembly process to ensure output pressure beyond the skin perception threshold. A haptic feedback system is demonstrated using these actuators and pressure sensors. Two applications illustrate the capability of transferring information about surface textures and object shapes from a robot to a user, enabling bilateral human-robot interactions.

Si Chen, Yanjun Chen, Ji Yang, Teng Han, Shanshan Yao