Recent Advances and Next Generation Haptic Sensor and Actuator Solutions for Tactile Internet Applications: Perception-based Engineering

Abstract

The Tactile Internet is an important future-oriented topic focused on real-time communication between humans and machines. Tactile Internet applications require haptic sensor and actuator solutions that are low latency, low weight, bendable, easy to use, wearable, and integrable. This article introduces several wearable haptic interfaces developed by a research team led by the author using a range of technologies. These haptic interfaces aim to bring the sense of „touch“ to both human-machine and humancomputer applications. In this paper, the developed interfaces are introduced. The technological and construction properties are discussed with regard to their function, quality, power consumption, amplitude, frequency response, size, and weight. One presented example is the recently developed electronic skin, which consists of printed capacitive force sensor arrays fabricated using Kapton as substrates. Other examples include technologies based on graphene, dielectric liquids, dielectric elastomers, piezoelectric, and hybrid metamaterials. Perceptual knowledge and multimodal interaction are used to enhance the capabilities of the hardware and for the haptic signal design.