Haptic Textiles

We’ve been focusing our research efforts in areas that would provide assistance to those with Rhett Syndrome.

In thinking about the personal needs of Ysold, a girl with Rhett, we are looking at addressing needs for bodily stimulation and support.

We’ve been discussing developing a range of textiles that would provide sensory/haptic feedback that then we could use in a variety of applications to help those with specific sensory and assistive needs:

At this point we are thinking of creating one feedback per textile, and then we could use a combination of these textiles to create the overall desired effects.

These are the areas we would like to explore:
- temperature feedback

- pneumatic constriction/massage feedback (like Venodyne)

- pneumatic inflation feedback for support and stimulation

- small motor virbrational feedback stimulation and circulation

- acoustic vibrational feedback

Here are some possible projects that could use these textiles:

Points that we have discussed are thus:

- The need for laundering (removeable components)

- Ability to keep up with changes in fashion

- Stylish and fashionable - appeal to as wide an audience as possible
- Soft and wearable - soft circuits

- Battery powered if possible

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 2nd, 2006 at 3:44 am and is filed under Spring2006, Assistive Technology, ITP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.