A Miniature Multimodal Actuator for Effective Tactile Feedback: Design and Characterization

We designed a miniature multimodal actuator by combining servomotors and vibrators. The actuator is mainly designed to non-invasively deliver tactile information to human skin by high-frequency vibration and low-frequency pressures simultaneously. By utilizing two modalities at the same time, the actuator stimulates different types of mechanoreceptors and thus has the potential to increase the band width to transfer tactile information. The designed actuator possess the advantage of light weight, compact size, low power consumption, short response time, large ranges of pressure and vibration, and non-back-drivable mechanism. Multimodal actuators provide new tools and possibilities to display tactile information on human skin efficiently and intuitively. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.