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Deformable materials and structures in wearable haptic interfaces

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Abstract

Haptic technology reproduces the human sense of touch, playing a critical role in enhancing immersions in virtual and augmented reality, medical training and human–machine interface. With the rapid development of these fields, haptic devices are transitioning from rigid, bulky systems to flexible, wearable formats that are lightweight, stretchable and skin conforming, greatly improving user comfort and tactile fidelity. The ultimate goal of next-generation haptic interface is to achieve precise, high-resolution tactile feedback that closely mimics natural skin sensations through direct mechanical interaction. However, current technologies remain limited in delivering diverse feedback modalities and fine spatial resolution, mainly owing to the underexplored potential of deformable materials and adaptive structural designs. This Review highlights recent progress in deformable materials and structural innovations for wearable haptic feedback. Systematic evaluation metrics are proposed based on key haptic perception mechanisms to assess performance across multiple indicators, including amplitude, frequency, spatial resolution and energy efficiency. Key achievements in material science, structural engineering and system integration are analysed, along with discussion of current challenges and future research directions of next-generation flexible and wearable haptic interfaces. With these proposed metrics, we aim to guide researchers in selecting appropriate materials and design strategies for future haptic systems.

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Fig. 1: Schematic diagram of haptic interaction in the real and virtual worlds.
Fig. 2: Schematic diagram showing haptic perception and evaluation metrics.
Fig. 3: Performance metrics of selected deformable materials.
Fig. 4: Performance metrics of selected deformable structures.
Fig. 5: Perspectives for haptic feedback devices.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Grant Nos RFS2324-1S03, R1017-24F, C7005-23Y, T43-518/24-N, 11215722 and 11211523), City University of Hong Kong (Grant Nos 9200138 and 9200143), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 52503311), the Nano and Material Technology Development Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Science and ICT (No. RS-2024-00411904), in part by the InnoHK Project on Project 2.2 — AI-based 3D ultrasound imaging algorithm at the Hong Kong Centre for Cerebro-Cardiovascular Health Engineering (COCHE).

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  1. These authors contributed equally: Zhenlin Chen, Ya Huang.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Zhenlin Chen, Binbin Zhang, Dong Sun & Xinge Yu

  2. Hong Kong Centre for Cerebro-Cardiovascular Health Engineering, Hong Kong Science Park, New Territories, Hong Kong, China

    Zhenlin Chen, Binbin Zhang & Xinge Yu

  3. State Key Laboratory of Molecular Engineering of Polymers, Department of Macromolecular Science, Institute of Fiber Materials and Devices and Laboratory of Advanced Materials, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Ya Huang

  4. Shenzhen Research Institute, City University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China

    Xinge Yu

  5. Institute of Digital Medicine, City University of Hong Kong, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China

    Xinge Yu

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Z.C. and Y.H. contributed equally to this work. X.Y. and Y.H. conceived the ideas. Z.C., Y.H., B.Z., D.S. and X.Y. wrote and revised the manuscript. All authors contributed to discussing and commenting on the manuscript.

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Chen, Z., Huang, Y., Zhang, B. et al. Deformable materials and structures in wearable haptic interfaces. Nat Rev Mater (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41578-025-00877-0

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