Textile muscles to aid movement


A team of researchers at ETH Zürich have developed an upper body garment containing a textile muscle that detects and aids the arm movements of the wearer.

To determine the intended motion a set of sensors have been integrated into the exomuscle. With this information a series of textile cables, acting as artificial tendons, are tightened to assist the wearers motion. I’m guessing that the tightening is done with motors mounted against the body. This mixing of hard and soft aspects for such a garment while maintaining comfort and functionality is significant design challenge, and the team seem to have done an excellent job in this regards. There are many applications where such a garment could be used from aiding aging persons people with declining muscles to supporting recuperation to supporting manual works from fatigue.

Source: Eletimes