Full freedom-of-motion actuators as advanced haptic interfaces

The sense of touch conveys critical environmental information, facilitating object recognition, manipulation, and social interaction, and can be engineered through haptic actuators that stimulate cutaneous receptors. An unfulfilled challenge lies in haptic interface technologies that can engage all the various mechanoreceptors in a programmable, spatiotemporal fashion across large areas of the body. Here, we introduce a small-scale actuator technology that can impart omnidirectional, superimposable, dynamic forces to the surface of skin, as the basis for stimulating individual classes of mechanoreceptors or selected combinations of them. High-bit haptic information transfer and realistic virtual tactile sensations are possible, as illustrated through human subject perception studies in extended reality applications that include advanced hand navigation, realistic texture reproduction, and sensory substitution for music perception.

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Publication Details

Journal
Science
Published
2025-03-27
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adt2481
Citations
47
Primary Topic
Tactile and Sensory Interactions
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
67.26
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Full freedom-of-motion actuators as advanced haptic interfaces

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Full freedom-of-motion actuators as advanced haptic interfaces

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article en
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Abstract

The sense of touch conveys critical environmental information, facilitating object recognition, manipulation, and social interaction, and can be engineered through haptic actuators that stimulate cutaneous receptors. An unfulfilled challenge lies in haptic interface technologies that can engage all the various mechanoreceptors in a programmable, spatiotemporal fashion across large areas of the body. Here, we introduce a small-scale actuator technology that can impart omnidirectional, superimposable, dynamic forces to the surface of skin, as the basis for stimulating individual classes of mechanoreceptors or selected combinations of them. High-bit haptic information transfer and realistic virtual tactile sensations are possible, as illustrated through human subject perception studies in extended reality applications that include advanced hand navigation, realistic texture reproduction, and sensory substitution for music perception.

ScienceVol. 387(6741)
Inje University (KR), Northwestern University (US), Pohang University of Science and Technology (KR), Georgia Institute of Technology (US), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (CN), Neurological Surgery (US), Sungkyunkwan University (KR), The University of Texas at Austin (US)
Reduced inequalities
Openalex Percentile: Top 0%
Tactile and Sensory Interactions
67.26
DOISourceOpenAlex
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