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Q1

Design analysis and fabrication of arrayed tactile display based on dielectric elastomer actuator

Sensors and Actuators A xxx (2013) xxxxxx

Hoa Phung, Hyung Seok Lee, Dong-Hyuk Lee, Ui Kyum Kim, Canh Toan Nguyen, Hyungpil Moon, Ja Choon Koo, Jae-do Nam, Hyouk Ryeol Choi

Tactile display is a tool to help the human interact with machines by using feels of touch. This tactile display consists of a frame with a touch layer, rigid coupling, and an actuator. This device generates vertical motion to push the touch layer up or down. This device is designed to ensure the comfort of touch and safety for users.

SNA 8553 1

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Design analysis and fabrication of arrayed tactile display based on dielectric elastomer actuator
Hoa Phung a , Hyung Seok Lee a , Dong-Hyuk Lee a , Ui Kyum Kim a , Canh Toan Nguyen a , Hyungpil Moon a , Ja Choon Koo a , Jae-do Nam b , Hyouk Ryeol Choi a,
a b

3 4 5 6 7

Q2

School of Mechanical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea Department of Polymer System Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Republic of Korea

8 9 10 11 12 13

a r t i c l e
Q4 Article history:

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
The tactile display is an important tool to help the human interact with machines by using feels of touch. In this paper, we present a multiply arrayed tactile display device with Dielectric Elastomer Actuator (DEA). The device employs the liquid coupling between the touch spot and the actuator as the transmission of force. It is designed to ensure the comfort of touch and the safety of operation for the users while contacting with the human skin. The operating principle is explained in details, and a systematic design analysis is given. The displacements of tactile display is about 240120 m at 310 Hz, which satises the frequency requirements for simulating the Merkel cells as well as the Meissner corpuscles and the force is over 40 mN to simulate the nger tip. In addition, a dedicated fabrication method and performance measurements are explained. 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V.

Received 20 June 2013 Received in revised form 10 October 2013 Accepted 10 November 2013 Available online xxx Keywords: Tactile display Dielectric elastomer actuator Liquidcoupling Actuator EAP

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

21

1. Introduction To provide the tactile sensation to a user, a device needs to stimulate the human skin receptors such as Meissner corpuscles, Merkel cells, Pacinian corpuscles and Rufni endings [1]. Most tactile displays are developed to stimulate Markel cells for pressure, Meissner corpuscles for low-frequency vibration, and the Pacinian corpuscles for high-frequency vibration. In addition, it is reported the mean perceptual thresholds for the index nger is 33.5 mN and that of the middle nger is 32.1 mN [2]. Thus, tactile displays are needed to satisfy displacement threshold-frequency characteristics and perceptual force thresholds. There are many problems in applying tactile displays to real products, which are related not only to performance factors like displacement, response time, and the force of the devices, but also compactness, lightness, energy efciency, easy fabrication, low cost, etc. Previously, many transducers for tactile displays have been investigated [315]. Wagner et al. [7] developed a tactile shape display with a 6-by-6 array using RC servomotors. The display has large displacement, appropriate actuator density, and simple construction, but needs to be improved in terms of weight, cost and compactness. Nakamura et al. [8] used shape memory alloy(SMA) to develop a torso-based haptic device. Because SMA undergoes

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Q3

Corresponding author. Tel.: +82 31 290 7449; fax: +82 31 290 7507. E-mail address: hrchoi@me.skku.ac.kr (H.R. Choi). 0924-4247/$ see front matter 2013 Published by Elsevier B.V. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2013.11.009

large stresses and strains, the displacement and force of the device are large. Despite these advantages, the device has a limitation of low bandwidth and frequency. Tactile displays using focused ultrasound by Iwamoto et al. could provide enough force to transfer tactile sensation to a user with high resolution [9]. Klein et al. developed a tactile display using electrorheological uid [10], whereas Liu et al. used magnetorheological uid [11]. Recently, electroactive polymer (EAP) have been investigated as transducers for tactile displays. Dielectric elastomer as an electroactive polymer, is light in its weight and cost effectiveness with high energy efciency, and does not need additional means to change electric energy to mechanical one. Dielectric elastomer also features ease of fabrication with compact size and simple manufacturing procedure. Considering these points, dielectric elastomer has been studied by many researchers for tactile displays. Choi et al. developed a tactile display as a braille display for visually disabled, based on the dielectric elastomer [16]. Koo et al. presented a wearable tactile display device based on elastomer actuator [17]. Carpi et al. proposed hydrostatically coupled dielectric elastomer actuators for haptic interface with dielectric elastomer actuators [18]. Chakraborti et al. demonstrated a compact dielectric elastomer tubular actuator for refreshable braille displays [19], and the tubular actuator is based on ber actuators made by Arora et al. [20]. Niu et al. reported a Braille application of the tactile display [21]. In this paper, a multiply arrayed tactile display is presented as illustrated in Fig. 1. By employing dielectric elastomer actuator, a tactile display can be realized with notably simple mechanical

43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

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Fig. 2. Basic principle of dielectric elastomer actuator.

two-plate capacitor, which can be explained with the following equation [28]. =
o

102 103

V t

(1)

104

Fig. 1. Arrayed actile display with liquid coupling.

70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98

structure. The proposed device consists of a frame with a touch layer, rigid coupling, and an actuator that generates vertical motion to push the touch layer up or down. It is an electrically driven actuator, which can generate either small-scale vibratory motion or linear displacement. As the result, it provides stimulation at the touch layer with the human skin. In addition, since the manufacturing process is very simple, the device can be easily miniaturized, enabling extension into arrayed on. Such devices can be used in a wide variety of commercial applications, such as mobile devices, games, robotics, etc [16,2227]. The design also has the hydraulic amplication mechanism to enhance the displacement. Due to amplication, there are some researches for tactile display [3032]. Miki et al. [30] developed a vibrational Braille code display with large-displacement micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) actuator arrays, he also presented a hydraulic displacement amplication mechanism and studied its dynamic response when combined with a piezoelectric actuator [31] and demonstrated a MEMS-based hydraulic displacement amplication mechanism with completely encapsulated liquid [32]. In this paper, the design idea of the proposed device is introduced, and a prototype is presented. The performance is also validated experimentally. This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, the operating principle of the proposed tactile display is explained. Section 3 addresses the modeling and design analysis and dedicated fabrication method is detailed in Section 4. In the next, preliminary experiments are performed for evaluating the performance of the device and the results are shown in Section 5. Finally, concluding remarks are given and future works are discussed in Section 6.

where , called Maxwell stress, is compressive pressure from charge on the surface. And o and are free-space dielectric permittivity ( o = 8.85 1012 F/m) and relative permittivity of the dielectric material, respectively. V and t represent the supplied voltage and the thickness between the electrodes, respectively. Depending on the design and fabrication technique, the dielectric elastomer actuator can be implemented in various forms and generate a wide range of motions from micro to macro scale. Fig. 3 depicts the proposed design of the tactile display. The design is primarily based on Pascals principle [18]. A frame is rigid, and uid is lled up with pressure inside the cavity. Thus, at Voltage OFF state, a touch layer is bumped up by the pressurized liquid. When a driving voltage is supplied to the actuator, that is Voltage ON state, the actuator is contracted toward thickness direction and expanded along the radial direction by Mexwell stress. Thus, the actuator is moving down, and the touch layer moves down by

105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120

99

2. Operating principles As shown in Fig. 2, the actuation principle of a dielectric elastomer is similar to the electromechanical transduction of a parallel

100 101

Fig. 3. Idea of liquid coupling tactile display.

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liquid coupling. Displacement is dened as a difference of the touch layer between Voltage OFF state and Voltage ON state as shown in Fig. 3. The uid coupling amplies the movement of the actuator without any complicated mechanical transmission because of a smaller movable touch area than that of the actuator. It is a kind of indirect actuation method and thus, it can preserve the safety of the user from the electrical damage caused by high voltage supply. 3. Design analysis In this section, we calculate the displacement of the touch spot according to the input voltage. The strain of a material, , is calculated by stressstrain relationship of elastic materials as follows: = E (2)

128

129 130 131

132

133 134

where E is Youngs modulus. Then, the thickness strain, z could be calculated by Maxwell stress and Hookes law as follows: z =
o

135

Et 2

V2

(3)

Fig. 5. Change of the volume of the actuator part.

136 137 138

Since the dielectric elastomer is incompressible, and its Poissons ratio is 0.5. Thus, the radial strain, r , and z , are calculated as follows. (1 + r ) (1 + z ) = 1 r = 1 1 + z 1
2

Then, the surface area of an actuator part, S with a circular boundary whose radius is 2 mm is calculated as
r

149 150

139

(4)

S=

r 2 x2

r r2 x2

dx

(9)

151

r 2 4

140

(5)

S = 2 r (r

r 2 4)

(10)

152 153 154 155

141

r =

1 1+(
o /Et 2

)V 2

(6)

where r1 is the initial radius of the actuator part, and r2 is the actuated radius of the actuator part. From Eqs. (8) and (10), r2 becomes the function of V as follows. S1 = 2 r1 (r1
2 4) r1

142 143 144 145 146

If the dielectric elastomer is actuated with a xed circular boundary, the movement of the lm can be characterized as a change of the radius of a sphere as shown in Fig. 4. Then, the relation between the initial surface area of the actuator part, S1 , and the actuated surface area of the actuator part, S2 is written as S2 = (1 + 2 r ) S1 S2 = 1 1+(
o /Et 2 2

(11) 1 1+(
o /Et 2

156

S2 = 2 r2 (r2

2 4) = r2

)V 2

S1

(12)

157

147

(7)

According to these equations, the change of the radius of the actuator part, V, when the dielectric elastomer is actuated can be determined. The change of the volume of the actuator part is calculated as
r

158 159 160 161

148

)V 2

S1

(8)

V=

(r 2 x2 )dx

(13)

162

r 2 4
163

Thus, we have V= and 2 3 2 r V1 = 3 1 3 V2 = 2 3 2 r 3 2 3

2 4(r 2 + 2) r1 1

2 3 2 r 3 3

r 2 4(r 2 + 2)

(14)

164

165

(15)

166

2 4(r 2 + 2) r2 2

(16)

167

Finally, V= 2 3 2 r 3 2 3
2 4(r 2 + 2) r2 2

168

(17)

169

where V1 is the initial volume of the actuator part, and V2 is the actuated volume. When the initial radius of touch layer, ri , is determined the deformed radius of touch layer, rd , can be calculated as follows.
Fig. 4. Movement of the dielectric elastomer lm.

170 171 172 173

2 3 2 Vi = r 3 i 3

ri2 4(ri2 + 2)

(18)

174

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2 4(r 2 + 2) V rd i d

175

V=

2 3 2 r 3 d 3

(19)

176 177

where Vi is the initial volume of the touch spot. Finally, deformation of touch layer, D is calculated by D = ri
2 (r ri2 rt d 2 r2) rd t

178

(20)

179 180 181

where rt is the radius of the touch spot. All of these equations are summarized as follows. r2 = f (V ) V = f (r2 ) rd = f ( V ) D = f (rd ) (21) (22) (23) (24)

182

183

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Fig. 3 shows the changes of volume of the actuator part according to the initial radius when the thickness contraction of the actuator is 5%. The results notes the maximum deformation of the volume occurs when the initial surface of the actuator is almost at. The performance improves as small as possible the uid inside the device. Fig. 6 shows the design of the liquid coupling tactile display. The dimensions of the display 5 mm 5 mm 2 mm (W D H), and the distance between the displays is 5 mm. The radius of the touch spot is 1.5 mm and that of the moveable area of the actuator is 4 mm. The changed volume of the actuator part is transferred to the touch spot through liquid coupling, such that if the actuator goes down, the touch spot descends. The idea and design were presented previously, but differences in this design include the minimization of the size and the realization of array-type tactile display modules, it did not have the hydraulic amplication mechanism. We just embossed tactile display cells to secure the direction of bending (see Fig. 7). Bending occurs depending on the instantaneous unbalance of the force, and thus, the direction of actuation cannot be presumed without embossing [16,29]. 4. Fabrications The device mainly consists of two parts, the frame and the actuator. After assembling them, bonding and lling up the cavity of the frame with uid are followed. Detailed manufacturing processes are described in this section. To fabricate the frame, molding with silicone is applied as shown in Fig. 4. In the rst, a mold with two parts is prepared for making the frame. The frame is fabricated with a silicone. The silicone(Shinetsu, KE1606) needs to be mixed with a hardener with the ratio of 10:1. Then, the silicone is poured into the mold, and bubbles are removed in a vacuum chamber. The upper mold with the

Fig. 7. Fabrication processes of the actuator and the frame.

204

205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214

Fig. 6. A design of the liquid coupling tactile display.

silicon is cured for a day, and then, the frame is removed. To achieve uniform performance, the conditions of the frame, such as the thickness of the touch layer, bubbles in the frame, and surface roughness should be carefully checked. After checking the condition of the touch layer, the frame is cut into sections, and the fabrication of the frame is completed. In case of the actuator, the silicone lm (KCC Co.) with a thickness of 90 m is used as the substrate of the actuator. To fabricate the actuator, two masks are prepared for making the electrodes. After aligning the masks, they are tightly attached to the lm on both sides. As shown in Fig. 4, the lm is sandwiched between two masks, and the electrodes are made by mixing carbon and graphite. After detaching the masks from the actuator, the actuator is cut. To stack multiple actuators, silicone adhesive is used. Because the silicone adhesive layers do not move during actuation, these layers should be as thin as possible. The actuator layers are then stacked one by one. To minimize the effects of misalignment on stacking, masks with little bit larger size than that of the frame are prepared. Although the electrodes are bigger than the frame, the misalignment does not have inuence on because the bigger part of the actuator is tightly attached to the frame. After experiments to check the performance of the actuator, three-layered actuator is chosen for the display. After making the frame and the actuator, bonding and lling processes are followed. The frame and the actuator are attached using a silicone-based adhesive (Hand Seal by Okong Co.) as shown in Fig. 8. After bonding, the pressed curing is performed for one day. The cavity is then lled by a syringe pump with insulating oil (ISO VG 46 by Dongnam Petro. Co.). After lling up the cavity, the hole is sealed with the adhesive, and the prototype is completed.

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400

350

Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3

300

Displacement (m)

250

200

150

100 0 2 4 6 8 10

Fig. 8. Bonding and lling up the cavity.

Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 10. Displacement for different frequencies.

245

5. Experiments Three kinds of tests were conducted to evaluate the performance of the device, that is voltage responses, frequency responses, and force responses. Among the many prototypes, three prototypes with displacements of about 330 m at 7 kV were chosen for the tests. The performance of the device becomes better than that observed in previous research by changing the substrate of the actuator, enlarging the diameter of the electrode, reducing the amount of liquid, and achieving a ne surface on the mold [29]. Fig. 5 shows the responses of the three prototypes. We applied voltages ranging from 0 to 7 kV, and checked the displacement of the touch layer of the prototypes with a laser displacement sensor. The displacement of the touch layer at 0 kV was considered as a reference. When a voltage was applied to the device, the touch layer went down because of the extension of the actuator. Then, displacement was produced via liquid coupling. The displacement was measured about 340 m at 7 kV as shown in Figs. 9 and 10. Frequency responses were tested at the supplied voltage of 7 kV. Measurements of the displacements were conducted in the same way as the tests of the voltage responses. As shown in Fig. 5, the displacement decreases as the frequency goes up. The devices have displacements of about 120 m at 10 Hz. For tests of force responses, a push pull gage was used. A tip of the push pull gage was placed on the touch layer of the device. Then,

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the force of the push pull gage was estimated to be 0 mN. Because a possible displacement of the display was about 330 m, we moved the push pull gage from 0 to 350 m. Fig. 5 shows force responses of the device. The force response is about 10 mN at 50 m, 20 mN at 100 m, 30 mN at 150 m, 40 mN at 200 m, 60 mN at 250 m, 80 mN at 300 m, 120 mN at 350 m. The device has displacements of about 240120 m at 310 Hz, which satises the frequency requirements for simulating the Merkel cells (03 Hz) as well as the Meissner corpuscles(310 Hz) [33]. To stimulate ngers, at least 40 mN is needed. From the force responses experiments, the device could produce 40 mN of force with displacement ranging from 200 to 350 m. As a result, it can be noted that the liquid coupling tactile display could simulate ngers appropriately (see Figs. 11 and 12). To conrm these results, we conducted psychophysical experiments with four human subjects. Two men and two women aged 24 participated in the experiments, they put their ngers on the tactile display cells and did not look at them. First, the subjects felt the touch layer without supplying voltages. And then, the supplied voltage was changed, with frequencies ranging from 1 to 10 Hz, and observations were made as to whether or not the subjects feel a difference at every 0.5 kV. After checking the minimum voltage at every frequency, the displacements of the device were checked

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400 350 300

Prototype1

Prototype 1 Prototype 2 Prototype 3

140 120 100

Displacement (m)

250

Force (mN)
-1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

200 150 100 50 0

80 60 40 20 0 -50 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Supplied voltage (kV)

Fig. 9. Responses of the liquid coupling tactile display.

Displacement (m)
Fig. 11. Force responses for each displacement.

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Recognizable displacement (m)

Test subject 1 Test subject 2 Test subject 3 Test subject 4

120 100 80 60 40 20 0 0 2 4 6 8 10

By enlarging the diameter of the electrode, the effect of misalignment between each layer of the actuator and between the stacked actuator and the frame is reduced. Minimizing the amount of liquid in the chamber makes the volume change larger. By using a mold with ne surface, the touch layer of the frame becomes a smooth surface. The condition of the touch layer has a large effect on the performance of the device. The performance of the tactile displays was also to prove that the device could simulate an index nger at 010 Hz.

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Acknowledgments This work was done with support from the Ministry of Knowledge Economy under the Human Resources Development Program for Convergence Robot Specialists.
Frequency (Hz)

322

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References
Fig. 12. Recognizable displacement for different frequencies. [1] H. Kajimoto, N. Kawakami, S. Tachi, M. Inami, Smarttouch: electric skin to touch the untouchable, IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 24 (2004) 3643. [2] H.H. King, R. Donlin, B. Hannaford, Perceptual thresholds for single vs. multinger haptic interaction, in: Proceedings of IEEE Haptic Symposium, 2010, pp. 9599. [3] L. Yobas, D.M. Durand, G.G. Skebe, F.J. Lisy, M.A. Huff, A novel integrable microvalve for refreshable Braille display system, Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems 3 (2003) 252263. [4] P.M. Taylor, A.H. Sianaki, C.J. Varley, An electrorheological uid-based tactile array for virtual environments, in: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1996, pp. 1822. [5] P.M. Taylor, A. Moser, A. Creed, The design and control of a tactile display based on shape memory alloys, in: Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, vol. 2, 1997, pp. 13181323. [6] F. Toshio, M. Hideyuki, A. Fumihito, I. Hidenori, M. Hideo, Micro resonator using electromagnetic actuator for tactile display, in: International Symposium on Micromechatronics and Human Science, 1997, pp. 143148. [7] C.R. Wagner, S.J. Lederman, R.D. Howe, A tactile shape display using RC servomotor, in: The Tenth Symposium on Haptic Interface for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, 2002, pp. 354355. [8] M. Nakamura, L. Jones, An actuator for the tactile vest a torso-based haptic device, in: 11th Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems, 2003, p. 333. [9] T. Iwamoto, T. Maeda, H. Shinoda, Focused ultrasound for tactile feeling display, in: The Eleventh International Conference on Articial reality and Telexistence, vol. 2, 2001, pp. 12391244. [10] D. Klein, H. Freimuth, G.J. Monkman, S. Egersdorfer, A. Meier, H. Bose, M. Baumann, H. Ermert, O.T. Bruhans, Electrorheological tactile elements, Mechatronics 15 (2005) 883897. [11] Y. Liu, R.I. Davidson, P.M. Taylor, J.D. Ngu, J.M.C. Zarraga, Single cell magnetorheological uid based tactile display, Displays 26 (2005) 2935. [12] Y. Bar-Cohen, Refreshable Braille displays using EAP actuators, in: Proceedings of SPIE (EAPAD), vol. 7642, 2010, 764206. [13] N. Runyan, D. Blazie, EAP actuators aid the quest for the Holy Braille of tactile displays, in: Proceedings of SPIE (EAPAD), vol. 7642, 2010, 764207. [14] M. Matysek, P. Lotz, H.F. Schlaak, Tactile Display with Dielectric Multilayer Elastomer Actuators, in: Proceedings of SPIE (EAPAD), vol. 7287, 2009, 72871D-1. [15] L. Gorny, B. Zellers, M. Lin, S. Liu, Q. Zhang, The development of compact electroactive polymer actuators suitable for use in full page Braille displays, in: Proceedings of SPIE (EAPAD), vol. 7642, 2010, 76420B. [16] H.R. Choi, S.W. Lee, K.M. Jung, J.C. Koo, S.I. Lee, H.G. Choi, J.W. Jeon, J.D. Nam, Tactile display as a braille display for the visually disabled, in: Proceedings of the IEEE/RSJ/GI International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, vol. 2, 2004, pp. 19851990. [17] I.M. Koo, K.M. Jung, J.C. Koo, J.D. Nam, Y.K. Lee, H.R. Choi, Wearable tactile display based on soft actuator, IEEE Transactions on Robotics 24 (3) (2008) 549558. [18] F. Carpi, G. Frediani, D. De Rossi, Opportunities of hydrostatically coupled dielectric elastomer actuators for haptic interfaces, in: Proceedings of SPIE Smart Structures and Materials (EAPAD), vol. 7976, 2011, 797618. [19] P. Chakraborti, H.A. Karahan Toprakci, P. Yang, N. Di Spigna, T. Ghosh, A compact dielectric elastomer tubular actuator for refreshable Braille displays, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical 179 (2012) 151157. [20] S. Arora, T. Ghosha, J. Muthb, Dielectric elastomer based prototype ber actuators, Sensors and Actuators A: Physical 136 (2007) 321328. [21] X. Niu, P. Brochu, B. Salazar, Q. Pei, Refreshable tactile displays based on bistable electroactive polymer, in: Proceedings of SPIE (EAPAD), vol. 7976, 2011, 797610. [22] B. Hannaford, L. Wood, D. McAfee, H. Zak, Performance evaluation of a six axis generalized force reecting teleoperator, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics 21 (1991) 620633.

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30

Estimated force

25

Estimated force (mN)

20

15

10

0 0 2 4 6 8 10

Frequency (Hz)
Fig. 13. Required forces to simulate the feel of an index nger.

292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303

at each condition. Fig. 5 shows the recognizable displacement of an index nger, which decreased as the supplied frequency was varied from 1 to 10 Hz. The displacements at which all the subjects felt differences were about 135 m at 1 Hz, 100 m at 2 Hz, 75 m at 3 Hz, 70 m at 4 Hz, 55 m at 5 Hz, 45 m at 6 Hz, 40 m at 7 Hz, 30 m at 8 Hz, 25 m at 9 Hz, and 20 m at 10 Hz. From the test of force responses and the test of nger responses, we could estimate the forces required to simulate an index nger. Fig. 5 shows the estimated force results. The required forces are about 27 mN at 1 Hz, 20 mN at 2 Hz, 15 mN at 3 Hz, 14 mN at 4 Hz, 11 mN at 5 Hz, 9 mN at 6 Hz, 8 mN at 7 Hz, 6 mN at 8 Hz, 5 mN at 9 Hz, and 4 mN at 10 Hz (see Fig. 13). 6. Conclusions A liquid coupling tactile display with an array was proposed. The fabrication processes of the tactile display were described, for which methods were developed to improve the performance of the device. The methods involve changing the substrate of the actuator, increasing the diameter of the electrode relative to the frame, minimizing the amount of liquid in the chamber, and ensuring a ne surface of the mold. Changing the substrate of the actuator enabled high breakdown strength and larger displacement for the actuator.

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Please cite this article in press as: H. Phung, et al., Design analysis and fabrication of arrayed tactile display based on dielectric elastomer actuator, Sens. Actuators A: Phys. (2013), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.sna.2013.11.009