Functional fiber | Magical! Have you seen the new fiber that can sense breathing?

Fiber is one of the basic elements in building the world and one of the most important inventions of mankind. According to Chinese archaeological discoveries, humans began to use fiber materials more than 5,000 years ago. They were woven into textiles to protect humans and keep them warm and cold-resistant. In recent years, with the rapid development of information technology and artificial intelligence, fiber materials have developed a series of new functions such as power generation, energy storage, luminescence, color change, deformation, and sensing.

Compared with bulk and thin film devices, fiber-like electronics The device can be tightly adhered to irregular substrates, adapt to complex deformations such as twisting and stretching, and has unique properties such as breathability and moisture conduction. These advantages make fiber electronic devices have a wide range of applications in power systems, information technology, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, big health, space exploration and other fields.

Developed by researchers at MIT and Sweden A new type of fiber could be made into clothing that senses how much it is stretched or compressed and then provides instant tactile feedback in the form of pressure, lateral stretch or vibration. The team suggests that such fabrics could be used in clothing to help train singers or athletes to better control their breathing, or to help patients recovering from illness or surgery restore breathing patterns.

Multiple layers of fiber contain a fluid channel in the center that can pass through Fluid system activation. The system controls the geometry of the fibers by pressurizing and releasing a fluid medium, such as compressed air or water, into the channels, allowing the fibers to act as artificial muscles. The fibers also contain stretchable sensors that detect and measure how much the fiber stretches. The resulting composite fibers are thin and flexible enough to be sewn using standard commercial machines.��Woven or knitted.

The fibers, called OmniFibers, were introduced by the Association for Computing Machinery. Presented at the Online Conference on Interface Software and Technology.

The new fiber optic architecture has many key features. Their extremely narrow dimensions and use of inexpensive materials make it relatively easy to construct the fibers into various fabric forms. It is also compatible with human skin as its outer layer is based on a material similar to regular polyester. Furthermore, its fast response time and the intensity and variety of forces it can deliver allow for fast feedback systems using haptics (touch-based) for training or remote communication.

<p style="margin: 0px 8px; padding: 0px; outline: 0px; max-width: 100%; clear: both ; min-height: 1em; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-size: 17px; letter-spacing: 0.544px; text-align: justify; line-height: 1.75em; text-indent: 2em; box-sizing: border-box !important; overflow-wrap: break-word !important; font-family: -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, " helvetica="" neue="" pingfang="" sc="" hiragino= Disadvantages of most existing artificial muscle fibers, says Afsar is that they are either thermally activated, causing overheating when in contact with human skin, or they are power inefficient or the training process is onerous. These systems often have slow response and recovery times, limiting their immediate usability in applications that require fast feedback, she said.

As ​​an initial test application of the material, the team created a An undergarment that singers can wear to monitor and playback the movement of their respiratory muscles, then provide kinesthetic feedback through the same garment to encourage optimal posture and breathing patterns for desired vocal performance. “Singing is very close to home because my mother is…A famous opera singer. She’s a soprano,” she said. In the design and creation of the dress, Afsar worked closely with classically trained opera singer Kelsey Cotton.

“I really wanted to capture this expertise in a tangible form,” Afsar said. The researchers had the singer perform while wearing a garment made from their robotic fibers and recorded motion data from strain sensors woven into the garment. They then convert the sensor data into corresponding tactile feedback. “We were finally able to implement the sensing and actuation patterns we wanted in textiles, recording and replaying the complex movements we could capture from the physiology of a professional singer and translating them into the body of a non-singer, a novice learner . So we’re not just taking this knowledge from experts, but we’re also able to pass it on to people who are just learning,” she said.

While this preliminary test was conducted in the context of vocal education But the same approach can be used to help athletes learn how to best control their breathing in a given situation, based on monitoring athletes completing various activities and stimulating muscle groups, Afsar said. Eventually, the hope is that the garments could also be used to help patients restore healthy breathing patterns after major surgery or respiratory illnesses like Covid-19, or even as an alternative treatment for sleep apnea (Afsar suffered from the condition as a child, she said).

The system can also be used to train other things besides breathing Types of muscle movements. For example, “Many of our artists learn amazing calligraphy, but I want to feel the dynamics of the brushstrokes,” which might be accomplished with sleeves and gloves made from this closed-loop feedback material. He suggested that Olympic athletes could improve their skills by wearing clothing that mimics the movements of top athletes, whether weightlifters or skiers.

This soft, yarn-like fiber composite has five layers: an innermost fluid channel, a silicone-based layer that contains the working fluid elastic tubes, soft stretchable sensors that detect changes in strain as electrical resistance, stretchable outer meshes that weave polymers to control the outer dimensions of the fibers, and non-stretchable filaments that provide mechanical constraints on overall stretchability.

“Fibre-level engineering and fabric-level design in this study “It’s well integrated,” said Li Ning, an assistant professor of human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University who was not associated with the study. The work demonstrates “different machine knitting techniques, including inlays and actively spaced fabrics, advancing the state-of-the-art in embedding driven fibers into textiles,” she said. “When we talk about the interaction of wearable devices with actuation fabrics, integrated strain sensing and feedback are essential.”

Afsar plans to continue working on miniaturizing the entire system, including its control electronics and compressed air supply, to make it as unobtrusive as possible, and developing and manufacturing system to produce longer filaments. Over the next few months, she plans to begin experimenting with using the system to transfer skills from experts to novice singers, and then explore different types of movement exercises, including choreography and dancers’ movements.

It is worth mentioning that clothing made of this fiber It is responsive and can withstand a variety of force intensities to form a fast feedback system. In the future, it may also be used for training or tactile-based remote communication.

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