Pneumatic circuits embedded into fabric to create assistive apparel

The team at Rice’s George R. Brown School of Engineering are developing a set of textile-based pneumatic computers capable of digital logic, onboard memory and user interaction. 

The lab’s so-called ‘fluidic digital logic’ is said to take advantage of how air flows through a series of ‘kinked’ channels to form bits. 

The idea is to have such textile-based logic gates support pneumatic actuators, potentially in conjunction with an energy harvesting system developed in the lab of Daniel Preston, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering, to help people with functional limitations with their day-to-day tasks.

The research backed by a recent US National Science Foundation CAREER Award appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

Preston said the lab’s logic-enabled textiles can be mass produced using existing clothes-manufacturing processes and are resilient enough to withstand everyday use. The researchers claimed the embedded gates are comfortable and tough enough to drive a truck over without damaging them.