Prototype of a fabric actuator with multiple thin artificial muscles for wearable assistive devices

A prototype fabric actuator for use in wearable movement-assisting devices is introduced. Such actuators must be lightweight and produce movements with as many degrees of freedom as natural human motion. This paper presents the structure of a fabric actuator comprising laugh-woven thin artificial muscles and binary control patterns that change the postures of the actuator in three dimensions. Six basic movements (forward bending, backward bending, left bending, right bending, left twisting, and right twisting) are tested with six different digital control patterns generated heuristically, proving that a woven swath of thin McKibben muscles is a viable technology for use in wearable devices.