Novel electroactive polymeric materials for dielectric elastomers actuators and soft robots

Interfacing between humans and machine using the sense of touch through haptic devices, is becoming increasingly important for consumer electronics, robotics, medical and automotive applications.

One bio-inspired way to achieve this is by developing soft haptic skins that can both part and receive information through touch.

However, developing soft haptic skins which have a significant tactile response and are robust enough for daily use in heavy use consumer applications is challenging. Our approach uses novel self-healing elastomers to create haptic skins in the form of dielectric actuators.

By combining the self-healing elastomers with custom design approaches we also show higher spatial resolution and a larger tactile response in comparison to existing approaches.

This allows for the creation of transparent, highly stretchable and self-healing haptic skins opening up their use in far more heavy use domains. The market for haptic devices is large, and is estimated to reach $4. 5 billion by 2026.

This is particularly driven by the need for novel machine-human interactions in the automotive, industrial machinery and medical industries.

These market segments require reliable, robust haptic skins which can withstand high usage whilst providing a strong tactile response.

We believe our haptic skin will allow for implementation and use in these high value target markets allowing for haptic skins to be used in a wide range of new and exciting application areas.

The aim of this project is to bring our haptic skin to market by: performing market studies to quantify the economic margin and identify most promising markets; establishing links with industrial partners and customers; developing and optimizing haptic skins for robustness and tactile response to meet the demands of industry partners; running user studies using the proof-of-concept devices to benchmark and establish the benefits to industry.