SORO-MADE: Soft Robotic Mannequin with Programmable Shape Deformation

英国时装业是一个每年为英国经济贡献高达350亿英镑的行业。未来的零售趋势可能会从购买大规模生产的服装产品转向消费个性化的产品、服务和体验。这些零售业的新挑战导致了基于商业街商店的定制设计和制造的兴起，其中具有定制3D形式的物理人体模型是服装生产和试衣的基本工具。作为机器人领域最热门的话题之一，软机器人系统受到越来越多的研究人员和工业企业家的关注。与传统的机器人系统由关节连接的刚性部件不同，柔性机器人系统由可变形材料在特殊设计的结构中形成。由软机器人系统致动的变形具有更多的自由度，以实现传统的具有刚体的机器人不能产生的目标自由形状。这一点非常重要，因为即使身体的关键尺寸相似，其他部位也可能有很大的差异。建议的项目旨在使可变形的人体模型能够通过使用软机器人系统提供的更多自由变形度来促进不同体型的定制服装生产。将研究先进的软机器人技术，以实现一个可伸缩驱动的软人体模型的原型，它可以变形，形成不同的形状的个人用户。将开发一个计算框架，以优化软人体模型腔室的数量、形状和位置，从而准确捕捉各个客户的3D形状。我们的软人体模型的设计将集成本体感受传感器，以提供变形形状的反馈，并将开发控制软件，用于可变形人体模型，以实现可编程的3D形状变形。该项目的成果将有助于提高纺织和服装行业的效率（因此也是生产力），将纺织行业带回英国，支持可持续的服装生产，并推进时装生产中的机器人技术前沿。

The UK Fashion industry is a sector that contributed up to £35 billions to the UK economy per year. Future retail trends are likely to shift from purchasing mass-manufactured apparel products to consuming personalised products, services, and experiences. These new challenges of retail industry are resulting in a rise in high street store based bespoken design and fabrication, where physical mannequins with customised 3D forms are essential instruments for garment production and fitting.As one of the most popular topics in robotics, soft robotic systems have received more and more attention from researchers and industrial entrepreneurs. Different from conventional robotic systems with rigid components connected by joints, a soft robotic system is formed by deformable materials in specially design structures. The deformation actuated by a soft robotic system has many more degree-of-freedom to realize a target freeform shape that cannot be generated by conventional robots with rigid bodies. This is important as bodies even sharing similar key dimensions, can vary considerably in other parts.The proposed project aims at enabling a deformable mannequin to facilitate the customised garment production for different body shapes by employing the many more degree-of-freeform deformation that can be provided by a soft robotic system. Advanced technology of soft robotics will be investigated to realise the prototype of a pneumatically actuated soft mannequin, which can be morphed to form different shapes of individual users. A computational framework will be developed to optimise the numbers, shapes, and locations of chambers for the soft mannequin to accurately capture the 3D shapes of individual customers. Our design of soft mannequin will integrate proprioceptive sensors to provide feedback of a deformed shape, and control software will be developed for the deformable mannequin to realise a programmable morphing of 3D shapes. The mannequin will be able to operate in the environment with high-temperature steam to allow for draping and forming of garments.The outcome of this project will help to enhance the efficiency (therefore also the productivity) of the textile and apparel industry, reshore textile-based industries back to the UK, support the sustainable apparel production, and advance the frontier of robotic technology in fashion production.