Towards human-resolution haptics: A high bandwidth, high density, wearable tactile display

Despite advances in digitizing vision and hearing, touch still lacks an
equivalent digital interface matching the fidelity of human perception.
This gap limits the quality of digital tactile information and the realism
of virtual experiences. Here, we introduce a step towards human-resolution
haptics: a class of wearable tactile displays designed to match the
spatial and temporal acuity of the human fingertip. Our device, VoxeLite,
is a 0.1 mm-thick, 0.19 g, skin-conformal array of individually
addressable soft electroadhesive actuators (“nodes”). As users touch and
move across surfaces, VoxeLite deliver high-resolution distributed forces
via the nodes. Enabled by scalable microfabrication techniques, the
display achieves actuator densities up to 110 nodes/cm², produces stimuli
up to 800 Hz and remains transparent to real-world tactile input. We
demonstrate its ability to render small-scale hapticons, virtual textures,
and transmit physical surfaces, validated through human psychophysics and
biomimetic sensing. These findings position VoxeLite as a platform for
human-resolution haptics in immersive interfaces, robotics, and digital
touch communication.