Robotically Aided Method to Characterise the Soft Tissue Interaction with Wearable Robots.

Wearable robots are widely used to enhance, support or assist humans in different tasks. To accomplish this scope, the interaction between the human body and the device should be comfortable, smooth, high-efficient to transfer forces, and safe for the user. Nevertheless, the pressure and shear stress related to these goals have been overlooked or partially analysed. In this sense, it is crucial to understand the soft tissue response through the in-vivo characterisation of multiple areas of the human body. In fact, soft tissue characterisation plays an essential role in calculating the pressure distribution and shear stress. However, current approaches to estimating soft tissue properties are unsuitable for deployment with multiple human body areas. Hence, this work presents a novel methodology to ease the characterisation of soft tissues using a robotic arm and a 3D superficial scanner. First, the robotic arm is validated by comparing the tensile and compression tests to the indentation tests done by the robot, estimating a 10,4% error. The preliminary experimental tests present the hyperelastic model which fit two adjacent zones of the forearm. This analysis can be extended in several ways, such as: calculating the shear stress, the energy losses or deformations caused by the interaction, and investigating the pressure distribution of different types of physical interfaces.

An Interdisciplinary Tutorial: A Self-Healing Soft Finger with Embedded Sensor.

In the field of soft robotics, knowledge of material science is becoming more and more important. However, many researchers have a background in only one of both domains. To aid the understanding of the other domain, this tutorial describes the complete process from polymer synthesis over fabrication to testing of a soft finger. Enough background is provided during the tutorial such that researchers from both fields can understand and sharpen their knowledge. Self-healing polymers are used in this tutorial, showing that these polymers that were once a specialty, have become accessible for broader use. The use of self-healing polymers allows soft robots to recover from fatal damage, as shown in this tutorial, which increases their lifespan significantly.