Carbon nanotubes plastic actuator: Towards lightweight, low-voltage haptic devices

There is a lack of safe, lightweight, low-voltage actuators that can be used in haptic applications. One of the possible solutions is ionic electroactive polymer actuator - the only one among electroactive polymers that can be operated at low voltage in air. In this paper we present the carbon nanotubes based plastic actuators that we are currently developing as tactors in haptic devices and we will discuss their performance. We show how the use of different types of single-walled carbon nanotubes lead to produce plastic carbon nanotube/ionic liquid based actuators (bucky gel actuators) with different performance. Achieved force for both kinds of non-optimized actuators was two times higher than perceptive capabilities of the human finger. In addition, force-displacement modeling was done in order to rationalize the differences in actuation behavior and to provide design tools to optimize the geometry as a function of the specific requirements.