Transparent and flexible haptic actuator based on cellulose acetate stacked membranes

The tactile sensation is the human interact with machines in the form of felt sensations in the hand or other parts of body skin. This paper presents a film type actuator for haptic feedback devices, based on electrostatic actuation of plasticized cellulose acetate stacked membranes actuator, which is fabricated and evaluated for suitability of haptic feedback devices. The stacked membranes actuator shows many promising properties such as high transparency, lightweight, wide range of actuation frequency and high vibration acceleration for instance. The actuator structure shows intense vibration acceleration due to several layers of stacked membranes associated with the intensified electrostatic attraction force between chargeable cellulose acetate membranes. Experiment for measuring vibrational acceleration was conducted over a wide frequency range and actuation voltage to prove actuator’s great potential application as tactile actuator of haptic feedback devices. In addition, the operating principle, fabrication method and performance measurements are explained in details.