Bioinspired and Hierarchically Textile‐Structured Soft Actuators for Healthcare Wearables

Abstract

Soft pneumatic actuators possess the increasing potential for various healthcare applications, such as smart wearable devices, safe human‐robot interaction, and flexible manipulators. However, it is difficult to translate the existing technologies to commercial applications due to their inefficient volumetric power, sophisticated control with high operation pressure, slow production, and high cost. To overcome these issues, herein, a caterpillar‐inspired actuator using hierarchical textile architectures based on simple fabrication and low‐cost strategy is designed. Unlike the existing textile‐based pneumatic actuators, the designed actuators are constructed by combining boucle fancy yarns with a novel trilayer‐knit architecture. The as‐prepared actuators concurrently possess fast response (1100° s−1), large bending actuation strain (1080° m−1), high‐power density (272 W m−3), mechanical robustness, easy‐programmable motions, and human‐tactile comfort, which outperforms currently reported textile‐based pneumatic actuators. Furthermore, due to the geometrical transition of the engineered hierarchical structure, the developed actuators exhibit superior dual‐stiffness effect with stress evolution, providing a facile approach to addressing the conflict of flexibility and force output in soft fluidic actuators. This concept as a paradigm provides new insights to develop soft actuators with outstanding design flexibility, adaptability, and multifunctionality using engineered textile‐structure, which has great potential for real‐world applications in medical rehabilitation, physiotherapy, and soft robotics.

Pressure-Activatable Liquid Metal Composites Flexible Sensor with Antifouling and Drag Reduction Functional Surface

“…Mastering nature, the creatures of the natural world have taught us much. , The lotus leaf, with its “untouched by mud” feature; the shark, with its sea-swimming abilities; and the human finger, with its ultrasensitive properties, all have their unique strengths. In this work, a drag reduction and antifouling integrated piezoresistive sensor was prepared using a sandwich structure that combines three elements.…”

Personalized Medical Devices Connect Monitoring and Assistance: Emerging Wearable Soft Robotics

“…(g) Sewing and weaving. Reproduced from ref : Yang, M.; Wu, J.; Jiang, W.; Hu, X.; Iqbal, M. I.; Sun, F. Adv . Funct .…”

“…As shown in Figure 3g, Yang et al combined wool fancy yarn with a novel three-layer braided structure to construct an actuator. 45 During the spinning process, the polyurethane Roving was stretched and twisted according to the procedure and then wound on the polyester fiber with negative pressure feeding, forming a beaded structure through shrinkage, and the polyester fiber was in a free state. It is easy to integrate soft robotics into daily clothing by sewing and weaving.…”

“…This technology can be combined with computers to carry out digital weaving and is mostly used to make soft robotics composed of fabrics. As shown in Figure g, Yang et al combined wool fancy yarn with a novel three-layer braided structure to construct an actuator . During the spinning process, the polyurethane Roving was stretched and twisted according to the procedure and then wound on the polyester fiber with negative pressure feeding, forming a beaded structure through shrinkage, and the polyester fiber was in a free state.…”

Knitting from Nature: Self-Sensing Soft Robotics Enabled by All-in-One Knit Architectures

“…Knitting, a long-established and ubiquitous textile manufacturing process, can easily form different looped structures by changing the stitches and raw materials online to achieve integrated sensing performance and specific mechanical properties. – Kitting technology also provides an easy way to reconstruct different actuators with various deformations and functions through stitching, disassembling, and reknitting processes. In addition, the inherent flexibility, high throughput, and low-cost feature of textiles make them promising candidates for fabricating soft robotics. – Previous research has demonstrated a variety of textile-based soft pneumatic actuators, – but few works have been done to realize fabric-based robotics capable of proprioception and exteroception properties based on a combination of digitalized knit stitches.…”