Enhanced design of a soft thin-film vibrotactile actuator based on PVC gel

Abstract

We fabricated a soft thin-film vibrotactile actuator, which can be easily inserted into wearable devices, based on an electroactive PVC gel. One of the most important factors in fabricating a soft and thin vibrotactile actuator is to create vibrational force strong enough to stimulate human skin in a wide frequency range. To achieve this, we investigate the working principle of the PVC gel and suggest a new structure in which most of electric energy contributes to the deformation of the PVC gel. Due to this structure, the vibrational amplitude of the proposed PVC gel actuator could considerably increase (0.816 g (g = 9.8 m/s2) at resonant frequency). The vibrotactile amplitude is proportional to the amount of input voltage. It increased from 0.05 g up to 0.416 g with increasing applied voltages from 200 V to 1 kV at 1 Hz. The experimental results show that the proposed actuator can create a variety of haptic sensations.