Development of Textile based Strain Sensing Actuator

This project is based on a developing a working prototype of textile-based hand exoskeleton for the rehabilitation of post-stroke patients. Such medical inabilities like stroke or Parkinson?s disease cause a person to be dysfunctional, especially his hand motions become unresponsive. This inability

Project Title

Development of Textile based Strain Sensing Actuator

Project Area of Specialization

Robotics

Project Summary

This project is based on a developing a working prototype of textile-based hand exoskeleton for the rehabilitation of post-stroke patients. Such medical inabilities like stroke or Parkinson’s disease cause a person to be dysfunctional, especially his hand motions become unresponsive. This inability causes him to suffer from being unable to perform his daily life activities as his hand cannot flex and extend. Previous researchers have explored this area of developing such exoskeletons based on soft actuators such as textile-based actuators to help people suffering from such a disability and provide them with such a device that would make them least dependent on others and ultimately make their life a little bit easier. However, the major

Limitation of this are:

• Its lack of sensing abilities to timely monitor patients’ movement becomes an obstacle.
• Lack of feedback loop makes it difficult to analyse if the rehabilitation is showing positive results or not.

Therefore, to overcome this problem, the envision is to design and develop the Sensing-Actuator by imparting the strain sensing functionality into the actuator design by the Cut & Sew approach and testing it in the application environment.

Project Objectives

The objectives of this project are as follows:

• To develop textile based strain sensor using different types of conductive yarns.
• To test the strain sensor and select the most sensitive sensor which can give repeatable and reproducible results.
• To incorporate the strain sensor in a pneumatic actuator.

Project Implementation Method

The focus of this project is the development of a textile based strain sensor which later can be incorporated in a pneumatic actuator made by the cut and sew method. The yarn used for non-sensing part is polyester yarn and for sensing part SHIELDEX® yarn, a line of silver-coated polyamide yarns for twisting, spinning, weaving, embroidering, and warp and weft knitting and available in all forms single-filament, multifilament, and twisted, is used.

• Initially, multiple strain sensor samples will be made on the machine by varying the type of conductive yarn and the knit stitch.
• Once the strain samples are ready, they will be tested for the change in resistivity when the samples are expanded or contracted.
• After the strain sensor with the highest sensitivity has been selected, it will be incorporated on a pneumatic actuator.
• These pneumatic actuators will be tested for bend angle at different air pressurization and the change in resistivity will also be measured during this process.

The samples are produced by using SHIMA SEIKI SSR 112 flatbed knitting machine. The sample prepared will be tested on multi-meter by stretching it in lengthwise direction. The multi-meter is connected with a gauge factor test rig which will control the expanding of sample. The values of change in resistivity with respect to length will be obtained in a form of graph in a Lab-View program.

Benefits of the Project

Once completed, this project will not only offer a range of benefits in the compete rehabilitation of patients with some hand injury but it will also provide other benefits as mentioned below:

• The development of textile based resistive sensor and its characterization will provide a strong foundation for other research groups working on incorporating sensing capability in other areas as well.
• The use of textile; a compliant material, will provide ease for the wearer as they will not cause any discomfort.
• Also, the use of textile material can provide a cost effective way of producing different types of sensors working on different principles.
• Since, this projects incorporates textile based strain sensor with a pneumatic actuator, its application will be in monitoring the rehabilitation progress of people suffering from complete or partial loss of hand movement.
• The values obtained of the strain caused by the bending of a finger will be recorded and then analyzed by a professional which will be helpful in determining any positive or negative change in the patient’s condition.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Firstly, in preparaing the strain sensor a set of paramters will be altered to best get the results. These paramters are:

• effective conductive area.
• no. of conducticve wales.
• no. of conductive courses.

The base fabric will be made of punched polyester and lycra. Once the samples are ready and tested, they will be incorporated in pneumatic actuator.

The end product will be a sensing actuator capable of bending and producing strain value simultaneously. 

In the future, through further research and developement, these sensing actuators can be made into a glove which will be capable of supportingh complete hand movement for people suffereing from upper extremeties disorders.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Core Industry

Manufacturing

Other Industries

Medical , Health

Core Technology

Robotics

Other Technologies

Wearables and Implantables

Sustainable Development Goals

Good Health and Well-Being for People, Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com