Work

Design and Modeling of a High‐Displacement, Skin‐Integrated Flexible Electromagnetic Actuator for Haptic Interfaces in Virtual Reality

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This article presents a haptic feedback system combining a flexible electromagnetic actuator with off‐the‐shelf components and virtual/augmented reality (VR/AR) platform to interact with the skin. The system translates targeted VR signals into localized, real‐time vibrations on the forearm. Existing actuator technologies struggle to balance flexibility, scalability, and control over displacement and resonance frequency ranges, limiting their suitability for wearable systems. Moreover, research‐oriented devices are highly specialized and costly, making them difficult to reproduce at a large scale. To address these challenges, we propose an actuator design framework with a tunable model that enables control over displacement and resonance frequency. Using this model, we develop a scalable actuator (12 × 12 × 3.6 mm 3 ) in a 6 × 4 array, leveraging commercial coils, mounted on a wearable sleeve. The device delivers displacements up to 15.8 μm at a resonance frequency of 220 Hz, aligning with the sensitivity of Pacinian corpuscles for high‐frequency vibrotactile feedback. To validate its performance, we implement a VR/AR case study using a Meta Quest 2 system to simulate a haptic laser pointer named “Haptix World” . Our key contributions include: (i) tractable actuator design model, (ii) high‐displacement flexible electromagnetic actuator, and (iii) complete human–machine interface pipeline that bridges VR interactions with physical haptics.

Source: Advanced Robotics Research

DOI: 10.1002/adrr.202500191