Textile-based Wearable Mechanotheraphy Device with Liquid/Vapor Phase Change Actuation

Descripción del proyecto

Dispositivos basados en material textil para manipular tejidos suaves con más eficiencia

La manipulación de tejidos suaves es una potente forma de mecanoterapia y se utiliza en rehabilitación física, prevención de enfermedades y fomento de la salud. Se han desarrollado diferentes tipos de dispositivos a fin de manipular tejido muscular para aplicaciones clínicas. Aunque estos sistemas pueden manipular tejidos suaves a la perfección mediante la aplicación de fuerzas controladas, resultan caros y son rígidos. El proyecto RoboTexTherapy, financiado por las Acciones Marie Skłodowska-Curie, tiene previsto usar materiales textiles para desarrollar sistemas más ligeros y seguros de usar. Si lo consigue, el proyecto sentará las bases para unos tratamientos y dispositivos mejores y más efectivos en lo que respecta a la comodidad, la movilidad y el consumo de energía.

Objetivo

Soft Tissue Manipulation (STM) is a powerful and direct form of mechanotherapy, which has significant implications in physical rehabilitation, disease prevention and health promotions. Different types of devices for manipulating muscle tissue have been developed for clinical applications and pneumatic compression devices are already in the market and widely used. However, these systems have limited control modalities and lack of monitoring the forces being exerted to the body during the application and previous studies have shown that the loading conditions of soft tissue have a crucial effect on the mechano-therapeutic treatment. One of the main drawback of the pneumatic compression systems is they do need rigid and bulky pumping systems for the implementation of mechanotherapy and this requirement greatly reduces the mobility of the device. Furthermore, rigid-body industrial robotic manipulators have also been used for mechano-therapeutic applications. Although these systems have the ability to perfectly manipulate soft tissue and apply controlled forces, they are expensive and do not enable safe human-device interaction due to their rigid nature. Overall, to address the challenges above I will employ textile materials to achieve both sensing and actuation with the help of phase change property of low boiling point liquids. The textile-based approach will lead to system that are lighter and mobile and safe for human-device interaction. Its successful completion will contribute to the acceleration of the soft tissue providing better and more effective therapies in terms of wearability comfort, mobility and power consumption. By combining my existing skills with newly acquired skillset that will be gained during the fellowship I will have an opportunity for securing a permanent academic position within Marmara University or a top-tier European university and starting my own research group.