Improving Wearable Devices for Virtual Reality using Soft Robotics

Abstract

With the ever growing popularity of wearable devices, virtual reality and augmented reality, human-computer integration is not far from our reach. Wearable devices are meant to be worn as an extension of the human body. Once worn, the wearer's skin, tissue and sensory organs are coupled with the device, allowing the device to sense and act upon the body. These are similar in concept to how a soft robotic system may sense and react upon its environment, informing us that wearable devices share much of the same design space and challenges with soft robotics. This dissertation therefore presents the building blocks for future wearable device designs that are informed by soft robotics. We first introduce soft robotics in general and a fabrication method that demonstrates how soft and rigid components can combine and benefit from one another to create new materials and more complex designs. We also look into how a soft robotic system achieves proprioception, or how a robot knows its current state, without the need for external sensors. We then introduce wearable devices that work in concert with the sensory organs underneath our skin and our vision to create haptic illusions of contact and force. Yet, an underlying problem for both wearable devices that read biological signals and provide haptic feedback is that they are useless if contact is lost with the body. Therefore, lastly, we present a soft robotic system for wearable devices that can sense this loss of contact and correct for it.