Large displacement haptic stimulus actuator using piezoelectric pump for wearable devices

Recently, given Japan´s aging society background, wearable healthcare devices have increasingly attracted attention. Many devices have been developed, but most devices have only a sensing function. To expand the application area of wearable healthcare devices, an interactive communication function with the human body is required using an actuator. For example, a device must be useful for medication assistance, predictive alerts of a disease such as arrhythmia, and exercise. In this work, a haptic stimulus actuator using a piezoelectric pump is proposed to realize a large displacement in wearable devices. The proposed actuator drives tactile sensation of the human body. The measurement results obtained using a sensory examination demonstrate that the proposed actuator can generate sufficient stimuli even if adhered to the chest, which has fewer tactile receptors than either the fingertip or wrist.