An assembly of soft actuators for an organic user interface

Abstract

An organic user interface (OUI) is a kind of interface that is based on natural human-human and human-physical object interaction models. In such situations, hair and fur play important roles in establishing smooth and natural communication. Animals and birds use their hair, fur and feathers to express their emotions, and groom each other when forming closer relationships. Therefore, hair and fur are potential materials for development of the ideal OUI. In this research, we propose the hairlytop interface, which is a collection of hair-like units composed of shape memory alloys, for use as an OUI. The proposed interface is capable of improving its spatial resolution and can be used to develop a hair surface on any electrical device shape.