ArrayTac display enhances touch perception with high-fidelity rendering of shape, stiffness, and friction.

ArrayTac, a novel closed-loop piezoelectric tactile platform, is capable of simultaneously delivering high-fidelity, continuously tunable signals for shape, stiffness, and friction, enhancing intuitive human perception. It comprises a 4 by 4 actuator array, with each actuator featuring a three-stage micro-lever amplifier and Hall-effect feedback, enabling displacements of up to 5 mm, an array refresh rate exceeding 500 Hz, and a closed-loop bandwidth of 123 Hz. In psychophysical tests, untrained participants accurately recognized three-dimensional shapes and differentiated various stiffness and friction levels solely through touch. The platform also showcased image-to-touch rendering from an RGB image and facilitated remote palpation of a medical-grade breast tumor phantom from 1,000 km away, with all 11 participants successfully completing the task. This research was published on arXiv under identifier 2603.13829v2 with type replace-cross.