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A NEW ERA OF
SPOTLIGHT
ELECTRONICS
game manufacturer buys these actuators from Novasentis to make its video game joysticks. This improves the sensory realism in the game for the player.
Can you give other examples of mass market applications?
F. D. D. S. – The only limit is our imagination. We have already had successes in smartphones, musical instruments and defense. In the automotive industry, for example, we’re working on integrating sensors and actuators into the surfaces of dashboards. In homes, we are developing smart flooring and beds that can detect things such as movement, heart rate or a person falling. Then there are smart fabrics that measure and transmit biomedical information about the wearer. Also in the health sector, we have catheters and surgical guides where we can adjust their direction to the nearest tenth of a millimeter, as well as health tracking bracelets, etc. Electroactive polymers will also be found in virtual reality applications that are set to be developed in many fields.
What is innovative about these examples? Did they not exist already?
F. D. D. S. – By playing around with their chemical composition, we can offer materials with a wide and unique range of properties, from extreme sensitivity to deformation, vibrations and heat to the creation of sensations, energy and even cooling. One of the major innovations is that they generate their own energy from vibrations or ambient heat. Take the bracelet I referred to, which gets its energy simply from the body’s movement;
“Our partnerships with manufacturers,
academic institutions and associations in our sector are essential to the emergence of the organic
and printed electronics industry.”
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