Soft Wearable Systems to Prevent and Rehabilitate Musculoskeletal Injuries

Team: Heidi Woelfle, Alireza Golgouneh, Niharikha Subash, Miles Priebe, Taylor Boothe, Lucy Dunne, Brad Holschuh

Program: Wearable Technology Lab

How can we enable custom-fit device placement through an E-textile garment platform?

The time and effort it takes to build a prototype of an e-textile garment is a significant bottleneck for the development of new products and for research using wearable systems. When embedded devices need to be positioned in a specific way on each person wearing a garment, it may mean that a new garment needs to be built for every individual to customize device placement. In this project, we're exploring the development of an e-textile garment platform that allows devices to be "plug-and-play", repositionable on the surface of the garment using a simple connector. 

Our team has developed a novel flexible, stretchable 7-layer e-textile infrastructure that interfaces with a repositionable connector made by our partner LumeoTech. Components can be attached anywhere on the garment, and the connector makes both a mechanical and electrical connection. We are currently testing the system for lower-limb rehabilitation applications, specifically a post-ACL surgery rehabilitation scenario, in partnership with collaborators in Orthopedic Surgery and Rehabilitation Medicine.

Funders: Cisco Systems, Inc.