Recent Advances and Opportunities of Active Materials for Haptic Technologies in Virtual and Augmented Reality

Virtual reality and augmented reality (VR/AR) are evolving. The market demands and innovation efforts call for a shift in the key VR/AR technologies and engaging people virtually. Tele‐haptics with multimodal and bilateral interactions are emerging as the future of the VR/AR industry. By transmitting and receiving haptic sensations wirelessly, tele‐haptics allow human‐to‐human interactions beyond the traditional VR/AR interactions. The core technologies for tele‐haptics include multimodal tactile sensing and feedback based on highly advanced sensors and actuators. Recent developments of haptic innovations based on active materials show that active materials can significantly contribute to addressing the needs and challenges for the current and future VR/AR technologies. Thus, this paper intends to review the current status and opportunities of active material‐based haptic technology with a focus on VR/AR applications. It first provides an overview of the current VR/AR applications of active materials for haptic sensing and actuation. It then highlights the state‐of‐the‐art haptic interfaces that are relevant to the materials with an aim to provide perspectives on the role of active materials and their potential integration in haptic devices. This paper concludes with the perspective and outlook of immersive multimodal tele‐haptic interaction technologies. Tele‐haptics with multimodal and bilateral interactions are emerging as the future of the VR/AR industry. The core technologies for tele‐haptics include multimodal haptic sensing and feedback or tactile recognitions and regenerations based on highly advanced sensors and actuators. This is driving the paradigm shift of haptic interactions from human‐to‐computer/virtual environment interaction to human‐to‐human interaction.