Search papers, labs, and topics across Lattice.
This paper introduces a lightweight wearable fabric actuator designed to provide intuitive elbow angle guidance through surface haptic sensations. By employing McKibben-type artificial muscles, the system effectively delivers real-time feedback that adjusts to the natural movements of the wearer without hindering their activities. Experimental results demonstrate the system's accuracy in guiding elbow extension and flexion, highlighting its potential for enhancing user experience in various applications.
Real-time haptic feedback can now guide elbow movements without disrupting the wearer's natural activities.
The demand for wearable haptic devices has rapidly increased for various applications. However, many haptic devices interfere with the wearer鈥檚 activities and movements. In addition, several haptic devices fail to elicit intuitive haptic sensations by adjusting to the natural posture of the wearer. To address these issues, we propose an elbow angle guidance system using a lightweight wearable fabric actuator. The proposed actuator is made of fabric and has two McKibben-type artificial muscles attached to it, rendering it extremely lightweight and facilitating the delivery of surface haptic sensations to intuitively induce elbow extension and flexion. The surface haptic sensation elicited by the fabric actuator is adjusted to natural body movements without interfering with the wearer鈥檚 movements. Moreover, the proposed system measures and guides the elbow angle by changing the intensity of the surface haptic sensation delivered to users in real time. The accuracy of the proposed system is demonstrated through experiments involving human participants.
