Haptics / Human-Machine Interaction

Introduction

Haptics stimulate our sense of touch for communication between human and machine. Yet, haptics is not prioritized in our everyday devices, where the focus is on our sight and hearing for feedback and communication between devices and users. Advancing the haptics fields would greatly enhance our experience with devices, yet this requires smart materials capable of responsive behaviour.

What is happening now

Current efforts to produce haptic effects typically rely on the mature piezoelectric motor technology, with some unconventional systems using ultrasound. However, the resolution and practically of these technologies is insufficient for current applications.

Our Vision for our Research

Our vision is to develop thin-film haptic coatings that can deliver a wide range of programmable tactile cues, such as controllable friction, roughness, temperature, and compliance (soft–hard transitions, and even advanced functions like fiber formation. By generating these sensations directly at the surface, the coatings provide rich, perceivable touch feedback while remaining lightweight and conformable.

Importantly, they are designed to be directly integrated onto existing devices and interfaces, rather than requiring a standalone actuator module like conventional piezo-based hardware.

Responsive Properties

The responsive dynamic surface properties of liquid crystals offers potential for communication between human and machine as a thin-film.

Haptic Effects

We aim to apply various stimuli to produce haptic effects on dynamic liquid crystal thin-films.

Communication

Our vision is to create haptic systems capable of communicating and receiving haptic feedback from users to establish another channel of communication between human and machine beyond sight and hearing.

Applications of our research

Our haptic coatings support applications ranging from tactile displays and touch interfaces to wearable haptics, VR/AR controllers, and teleoperation/robotic interfaces, where rich surface-based feedback can enhance realism, guidance, and accessibility.