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

社交接触是人与人之间的自然沟通模式，更好地理解如何机械地传达社交接触将产生新的沟通形式，并提高可穿戴设备的功能，从而改善人类健康和生活质量。随着我们通过电子邮件、短信和视频会议增加远程通信，社交接触的重要性变得越来越明显。先前的研究表明，社交触摸可以通过可穿戴和可手持设备复制，但目前的设备体积庞大，不切实际。本研究将结合联合收割机的软机器人原理和不同刚度的针织纺织品来设计和制造一种新的软穿戴式触觉装置，其中仔细规范的针脚大小，位置和材料在针织套筒将控制变形的气囊，施加力给穿戴者。项目成果将推进社会接触和人类感知领域的知识，并将为各种其他类型的基于纺织品的设备奠定基础，包括软辅助设备。通过实验室图尔斯、外展计划和对工程学中代表性不足的群体的学生的指导，以及通过开源材料库向广大受众提供项目成果，旨在扩大代表性不足的群体在工程学中的参与的活动将产生额外的广泛影响。目前的软可穿戴设备体积庞大且不实用，因为它们需要刚性框架来确保负载传输。另一方面，由多材料和多针针织纺织品提供的材料特性的像素状控制可以有效地将力传递重定向到精确的变形模式并且具有低轮廓。该项目的方法设计，制造和测试可穿戴设备在三个推力。第一个推力将通过使用实验材料表征和多尺度建模的组合来建模和优化针织物，以实现目标载荷和变形曲线，从而利用现代针织工艺的全部功能。第二个重点将设计，制造和测试可穿戴气动设备，包括考虑穿脱，致动器集成和接口，以及设备表征。第三个推力将使用具有预编程触觉表情符号的设备来实现和测试社交触摸提示，并真实的实时显示遥控社交触摸队列。这些努力将共同创造新的通信形式，并提高可穿戴设备的功能，从而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知识价值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.