Medical Design Briefs - October 2023 - 51

Smart Wearable Fabrics Use Haptic Input
Wearable textile-based
device compensates for
deficiencies in visual and
auditory inputs.
Rice University
Houston, TX
Personal devices feed our sight and hearing
virtually unlimited streams of information
while leaving our sense of touch mostly
... untouched.
A wearable, textile-based device developed
by Rice University engineers could
help declutter, enhance - and, in the case
of impairments - compensate for deficiencies
in visual and auditory inputs by
tapping this underused sensory resource.
" Technology has been slow to co-opt
haptics or communication based on the
sense of touch, " says Barclay Jumet, a mechanical
engineering PhD student who
is the lead author on a study published
in Device. " Of the technologies that have
incorporated haptics, wearable devices
often still require bulky external hardware
to provide complex cues, limiting
their use in day-to-day activities. "
The system of haptic accessories built by
the Rice labs of Daniel Preston and Marcia
O'Malley reduces the need for hardware by
programming haptic cues into the textile
structure of the wearables using fluidic
control, building on an approach described
in prior work.
" With a traditional control system using
voltage and current, you'd typically
need many electronic inputs to achieve
complex haptic cues, " said Preston, an
assistant professor of mechanical engineering
at Rice whose lab explores the
intersection of energy, materials, and fluids.
" In this device, we've offloaded a lot
of that complexity to the fluidic controller
and require only a very limited number
of electronic inputs to provide sophisticated
haptic stimulation. "
Comprised of a belt and textile
sleeves, the wearables rely on fluidic signals
- such as pressures and flow rates
- to control the delivery of complex
haptic cues, including sensations like vibration,
tapping, and squeezing. A
small, lightweight carbon dioxide tank
affixed to the belt feeds airtight circuits
incorporated in the heat-sealable textiles,
causing quarter-sized pouches -
Medical Design Briefs, October 2023
Barclay Jumet, lead author on the study, with the wearable, textile-based device developed that could help
declutter, enhance - and,
in
the case of impairments - compensate for deficiencies in
tory inputs by tapping this underused sensory resource. (Credit: Brandon Martin/Rice University)
up to six on each sleeve - to inflate with
varying force and frequency.
In an experiment demonstrating the
device's utility for real-world navigation,
these cues served as directions guiding a
user on a mile-long route through the
streets of Houston. In another experiment,
a user outlined invisible Tetris
pieces in a field by following the direcwww.medicaldesignbriefs.com
tions
conveyed to them through the
haptic textiles.
" The belt incorporates a slimmeddown
version of the electronic control
system that might otherwise be required, "
Jumet says. " In this case, we had
12 pouches across two sleeves progressively
inflate to indicate one of four directions:
forward, backward, left, or
51
visual and audi
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Medical Design Briefs - October 2023

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