Easy Undressing with Soft Robotics

Dexterity impairments affect many people worldwide, limiting their ability to easily perform daily tasks and to be independent. Difficulty getting dressed and undressed is commonly reported. Some research has been performed on robot-assisted dressing, where an external device helps the user put on and take off clothes. However, no wearable robotic technology or robotic assistive clothing has yet been proposed that actively helps the user dress. In this article, we introduce the concept of Smart Adaptive Clothing, which uses Soft Robotic technology to assist the user in dressing and undressing. We discuss how Soft Robotic technologies can be applied to Smart Adaptive Clothing and present a proof of concept study of a Pneumatic Smart Adaptive Belt. The belt weighs only 68 g, can expand by up to 14% in less than 6 s, and is demonstrated aiding undressing on a mannequin, achieving an extremely low undressing time of 1.7 s.