Affective Touch and Low Power Artificial Muscles for Rehabilitative and Assistive Wearable Soft Robotics

Abstract

Abstract-The goal in wearable rehabilitation is to restore the lost functionality of the body by rebuilding the sensory-motor link. This may be achieved through a replication, in an artificial or robotic system, of the physiotherapy methods employed by human experts. These methods are typically focused on physical manipulation. We suggest that a lower reliance on manipulation, combined with affective touch stimulation, has the potential to provide effective rehabilitation in lower power and lighter wearable devices. Here we consider affective touch driven by soft actuation and how this may be combined with low power artificial muscle actuators for physical rehabilitation.

Design and Performance Analysis of a Skin-Stretcher Device for Urging Head Rotation

“…Ion et al designed a device that stretches the arm's skin in various directions and mea-Copyright c 2020 The Institute of Electronics, Information and Communication Engineers Fig. 1 Skin-stretcher device designed at University of Bristol [3] sured the accuracy of the participants' perceived displacement [9]. They proved that various shapes can be indicated by using skin sensation.…”

“…A preceding research work for this purpose is the skin stretcher as shown in Fig. 1, which was introduced by Rossiter et al [3]. The device pushes/pulls the skin by contracting or expanding itself through a link structure driven by a servo motor.…”

Low profile stretch sensor for soft wearable robotics

“…Manufacturing of wearable robots using soft materials and actuation components [1][2][3][4] promises great potential particularly in the context of safe human-robot interaction [5,6], ergonomics and comfortableness [7]. However, it is faced with intriguing engineering challenges with respect to configuration and control [8].…”