Workshop paper: Textile touch: electroactive textile in wearable haptic displays

Every haptic wearables designers dream is to have lightweight, low-power, silent, unobtrusive actuators comfortably integrated into the fabric of their garment. Electroactive textile could potentially fulfill this dream and the technology is maturing rapidly. Electroactive textile is woven or knitted from yarn coated in electroactive polymer and ionic gel. When a current is applied to the yarn it contracts or expands, and multiple actuating yarns together can potentially give a haptic stimulus on the skin of the wearer. Depending on how the actuating yarns are woven or knitted together, the electroactive textile could give different haptic stimuli. Electroactive textile would offer the unprecedented opportunity to turn any type of garment into a haptic display. These garments can be used to improve applications in several use cases. Because it is unprecedented, new knowledge with respect to display design, and user perception and experience must be developed to warrant successful implementation. In this paper we will discuss the state of the art in electroactive textile, the opportunities it offers and the research questions for its use in haptic wearables.