Traditional game controllers rely on vibrotactile feedback as the only haptic sensation transmitted to the user. With the advent of consumer virtual reality platforms, users now have the ability to more deeply immerse themselves into videogames with visuals that match every head movement. The ability to transmit the action of the games into physical forces on the user, however, hasn’t improved much in the last two decades since the Nintendo Rumble Pak was introduced.

Fluidic elastomer actuators (FEAs) address this gap in technology by safely providing large forces with high spatial resolution. Comprised of soft rubbers, these FEAs have an intrinsic compliance that enables safe and natural human-computer interactions. Because they are processed in the liquid state, these actuators can be formed into nearly any shape and large arrays of actuators can be readily integrated in a single device.

For a first proof-of-concept, I created a sleeve with twelve FEAs that can fit over an HTC Vive controller. Each FEA is individually controlled with pressures up to 30 psi and can be used to dynamically impart pulses and sustained forces to the users hand when holding the controller.