Collaborative Research: HCC: Small: Computational Design and Application of Wearable Haptic Knits

社交触摸是人与人之间的一种自然交流模式，更好地理解如何机械地传达社交触摸将带来新的交流形式，并增加可穿戴设备的功能，从而改善人类健康和生活质量。随着我们越来越多地通过电子邮件、短信和视频会议进行远程交流，社交接触的重要性变得更加明显。先前的研究表明，社交触摸可以通过可穿戴和可握持的设备进行复制，但目前的设备笨重且不切实际。这项研究将结合软机器人和变硬度针织纺织品的原理，设计和制造一种新型的软可穿戴触觉装置，在针织套筒中仔细指定缝合尺寸、位置和材料，将控制向穿戴者施力的气动膀胱的变形。项目成果将促进社会触觉和人类感知领域的知识，并将为各种其他类型的针织设备奠定基础，包括柔软的辅助设备。其他广泛的影响将来自旨在扩大未被充分代表的群体在工程学中的参与的活动，方法是通过实验室参观、外展计划和指导来自工程学中未被充分代表的群体的学生，以及通过开源材料库向广大受众提供项目结果。目前的软可穿戴设备笨重且不切实际，因为它们需要僵硬的框架来确保负载传递。另一方面，多面料和多针针织面料对材料性能的像素式控制，可以将力传递重新定向到精确的变形模式，高效和低轮廓。该项目从三个方面着手设计、制造和测试支持针织的可穿戴设备。第一个推力将模拟和优化编织，通过使用实验材料表征和多尺度建模的组合来实现目标载荷和变形分布，以充分利用现代针织工艺的能力。第二个推力将设计、制造和测试可穿戴气动设备，包括考虑穿戴和落纱、执行器集成和接口，以及设备特性。第三个推力将使用该设备实现和测试社交触摸提示，该设备带有预先编程的触觉表情符号，并实时显示远程操作的社交触摸队列。总而言之，这些努力将创造新的通信形式，并导致提高可穿戴设备的能力，以改善人类健康和生活质量。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Social touch is a natural mode of communication between people and better understanding of how to convey social touch mechanistically will result in new forms of communication and increased capabilities of wearable devices that improve human health and quality of life. The importance of social touch is becoming more evident as we increase remote communication through email, text messages and videoconferencing. Prior work has shown that social touch can be replicated through wearable and holdable devices, but current devices are bulky and impractical. This research will combine principles of soft robotics and knit textiles of varying stiffness to design and fabricate a new kind of soft wearable haptic device, in which careful specification of stitch size, placement, and material in a knit sleeve will control the deformation of pneumatic bladders that apply force to the wearer. Project outcomes will advance knowledge in the field of social touch and human perception, and will lay the foundation for a variety of other types of knit-textile-based devices, including soft assistive devices. Additional broad impact will derive from activities designed to broaden participation of underrepresented groups in engineering through lab tours, outreach programs, and mentoring of students from groups that are underrepresented in engineering, and by making project findings available to a wide audience through an open-source materials library.Current soft wearable devices are bulky and impractical because they need stiff frames to ensure load transmission. The pixel-like control of material properties afforded by multi-material and multi-stitch knit textiles, on the other hand, can redirect force transmission to precise deformation modes efficiently and with a low profile. This project approaches designing, fabricating, and testing knit-enabled wearable devices in three thrusts. The first thrust will model and optimize knits to achieve target load and deformation profiles by using a combination of experimental material characterization and multiscale modeling to harness the full capabilities of the modern knitting process. The second thrust will design, fabricate, and test wearable pneumatic devices, including consideration for donning and doffing, actuator integration and interfacing, and device characterization. The third thrust will implement and test social touch cues using the device with pre-programmed haptic emojis and display of teleoperated social touch queues in real time. Taken together, these thrusts will create new forms of communication and lead to increased capabilities of wearable devices that improve human health and quality of life.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.