OriFeel: Origami-Inspired Tactile Feedback via Surface Folding

Abstract

People passively interact with ambient surfaces such as tables, chair backs, and armrests throughout daily life, making them natural candidates for ubiquitous tactile interfaces. However, transforming these everyday surfaces into practical haptic interfaces remains challenging. Existing solutions typically rely on dense arrays of actuators, resulting in bulky hardware and high power consumption that limit their integration into ambient objects. We present OriFeel, a structure-driven tactile interface that leverages a Miura-ori folding mechanism to distribute actuation across multiple interconnected folding units. Rather than mapping actuators to individual contact points, OriFeel uses embedded cables to exploit structural interconnections, distributing actuation across the surface and enabling spatially controllable tactile output across multiple folding units. We implement prototypes using rigid and soft materials and characterize their ability to distribute actuation across interconnected units. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of structure-driven tactile feedback via coordinated folding of compliant origami surface structures, providing a practical foundation for compact, scalable ambient haptic interfaces.