Self-Wearing Adaptive Garments via Soft Robotic Unfurling

TL;DR

This paper introduces SWAG, a soft robotic garment that autonomously unfurls and adapts to the human body, offering a safer, more efficient dressing aid compared to traditional rigid robotic systems.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel soft robotic system with an unfurling mechanism for autonomous dressing, improving safety, adaptability, and efficiency over existing rigid robotic solutions.

Findings

Effective garment application demonstrated across various configurations

Reduces skin-garment friction during dressing

Operates with safer and more efficient deployment

Abstract

Robotic dressing assistance has the potential to improve the quality of life for individuals with limited mobility. Existing solutions predominantly rely on rigid robotic manipulators, which have challenges in handling deformable garments and ensuring safe physical interaction with the human body. Prior robotic dressing methods require excessive operation times, complex control strategies, and constrained user postures, limiting their practicality and adaptability. This paper proposes a novel soft robotic dressing system, the Self-Wearing Adaptive Garment (SWAG), which uses an unfurling and growth mechanism to facilitate autonomous dressing. Unlike traditional approaches,the SWAG conforms to the human body through an unfurling based deployment method, eliminating skin-garment friction and enabling a safer and more efficient dressing process. We present the working principles of the SWAG, introduce its design and fabrication, and demonstrate its performance in dressing assistance. The proposed system demonstrates effective garment application across various garment configurations, presenting a promising alternative to conventional robotic dressing assistance.