Vibrotactile actuators for small consumer electronic products, such as mobile devices, have been widely used for conveying haptic sensation to users. One of the most important things in vibrotactile actuators is to be developed in the form of thin actuator which can be easily embedded into mobile devices and to provide vibrotactile signals with wide frequency band to users. Thus, this paper proposes a thin film type haptic actuator with an aim to convey vibrotactile information with high frequency bandwidth to users in mobile devices. To this end, a vibrotactile actuator which creates haptic sensation is designed and constructed based on cellulose acetate material. A cellulose acetate material charged with an electric potential can generate vibration under the AC voltage input. It is found that the motion of the actuator can have concave or convex shape by controlling a polarity of both charged membranes and the actuator performance can be modulated by increasing level of biased electric potential. The experiment clearly shows that the proposed actuator creates enough output force to stimulate human skin with a large frequency bandwidth and to simulate various vibrotactile sensations to users.

This paper presents a new miniature haptic display to convey ample haptic information to a user of a handheld interface. There are buttons on interfaces or general electronic devices, but existing buttons provide haptic feedback of only one passive pattern to a user. Because humans perceive tactile and kinesthetic information simultaneously when they handle objects the proposed actuator provides both sensations at once. It is able to generate various levels of kinesthetic sensations when pressing a button under diverse situations. Also, vibrotactile feedback can be delivered for exciting haptic effects with numerous patterns. Its performance was evaluated in accordance with the resistive force by changing the intensity of the input current. Experiments show that the proposed actuator has the ability to provide numerous haptic sensations for more realistic and complex haptic experiences.