Skin-Mountable Vibrotactile Stimulator Based on Dielectric Elastomer Actuators
발표자
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초록
내용
Recently, with the enormous development of virtual/augmented reality applications and tactile-feedback systems, skin-stimulation technology has attracted intense attention. However, previously developed skin-stimulating devices have limitations in wearability and comfort due to their bulky, heavy, and stiff characteristics, thus disturbing users' immersive experience. This talk presents a new type of thin and lightweight dielectric elastomer actuator for developing a skin-mountable vibrotactile stimulator. A new methodology to improve the operating efficiency of dielectric elastomer actuators is suggested, based on laterally aligned dielectric multilayers (~900 layers) with short dielectric distance (~10 µm), which is made of a soft elastomer/ionic liquid composite with low modulus and high dielectric constant. With the improved structural/material properties, the flexible actuator exhibits high displacements at low operating voltage (<200 V) over a wide frequency range (~800 Hz). Therefore, the finger-band type vibrotactile stimulator is developed based on the laterally multilayered dielectric elastomer actuators, which can exert indentations corresponding to the whole perception frequency/amplitude range of all mechanoreceptors on human skin. Moreover, the actuator exhibits high electromechanical cyclic durability because the multilayer actuator is precisely structured with a time-efficient and sophisticated fabrication process using photolithography and secondary sputtering. At the end of the presentation, the potential for dielectric elastomer actuators to become even more sophisticated will be discussed. Contemporary microelectromechanical system (MEMS) fabrication techniques provide the benefits of reducing both the total areal size of dielectric elastomer actuators and the thickness of dielectric multilayers, resulting in ultralow operating voltages, potentially reaching magnitudes of several decades or just a few volts. This development will pave the way for dielectric elastomer actuators to find broader applications in everyday life, transcending the limitations of previous research efforts.