Easy undressing with soft robotics

Helps, Tim; Taghavi, Majid; Manns, Sarah; Turton, Ailie; Rossiter, Jonathan

Abstract

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018. Dexterity impairments affect many people worldwide, limiting their ability to easily perform daily tasks and to be independent. Difficulty getting dressed and undressed is commonly reported. Some research has been performed on robot-assisted dressing, where an external device helps the user put on and take off clothes. However, no wearable robotic technology or robotic assistive clothing has yet been proposed that actively helps the user dress. In this article, we introduce the concept of Smart Adaptive Clothing, which uses Soft Robotic technology to assist the user in dressing and undressing. We discuss how Soft Robotic technologies can be applied to Smart Adaptive Clothing and present a proof of concept study of a Pneumatic Smart Adaptive Belt. The belt weighs only 68 g, can expand by up to 14% in less than 6 s, and is demonstrated aiding undressing on a mannequin, achieving an extremely low undressing time of 1.7 s.

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (published)
• Conference Name: TAROS 2018
• Start Date: Jul 1, 2018
• End Date: Jul 1, 2018
• Acceptance Date: Apr 16, 2018
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: Jul 26, 2018
• Journal: Lecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
• Print ISSN: 0302-9743
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 10965 LNAI
• Pages: 79-90
• ISBN: 9783319967271
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96728-8_7
• Keywords: healthcare, adaptive clothing, soft robotics, wearable robotics
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/864305
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-96728-8_7
• Additional Information: Title of Conference or Conference Proceedings : TAROS 2018: Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems
• Contract Date: Jul 26, 2018