The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is to commercialize smart compression garments for enhancing performance gains during fitness, athletic training, and rehabilitation. The products to be commercialized are intended to address important needs in health and training that may be of interest to many fitness enthusiasts, amateur or professional athletes, and individuals recovering from physical challenges. This could include millions of individuals in the United States. The potential benefits for society and the economy are commensurately high. In the long term, this project may hold benefits for a large number of individuals that personally or professionally engage in physically demanding activities in the workplace, or that require physical assistance for activities of daily living. The underlying technology holds the potential to enable applications in healthcare and assistive and rehabilitative devices that could improve quality of life.
This I-Corps project is based on the development of a fabric technology that consists of a soft, muscle-like robotic fabric, that uses an actuated composite polymer textile. These actuated textiles consist of composite fabric structures that integrate an elastic-hydraulic transmission. Previous research revealed that the textiles are capable of supplying large, dynamic forces or displacements via soft fabrics that may be fashioned into wearable garments, which may be fabricated using facile textile manufacturing methods. This technology holds the potential to enable a wide variety of wearable garments with applications in fitness, healthcare, and many other areas.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
