Carnegie Mellon University researchers at the School of Computer Science (SCS) have developed RobotSweater, an innovative fabric system that lets robots feel and react to human touch. This machine-knitted textile “skin” was designed to be used in an industrial setting where safety is key, consisting of two layers of conductive yarn made with metallic fibers to conduct electricity.
Between the two layers of conductive yarn is a net-like, lace-patterned layer that when pressure is applied, closes a circuit and then read by the sensors. One challenge the team had to overcome was connecting the wiring and electronics components to the fabric. The solution was rapping the wires around snaps attached to the ends of each stripe in the knitted fabric. What’s next? The team wants to program reactions from swiping or pinching motions used on a touchscreen.
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There was a lot of fiddly physical prototyping and adjustment. The students working on this managed to go from something that seemed promising to something that actually worked. You need a way of attaching these things together that is strong, so it can deal with stretching, but isn’t going to destroy the yarn,” he said, adding that the team also discussed using flexible circuit boards,” said James McCann, CMU SCS Assistant Professor.
