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.