Electronics Design
of wearable electronics is something of a ‘chicken and egg’ situation. “The categories of emerging wearable electronics products are extremely broad (from fitness trackers and virtual reality headsets all the way to invisible skin patches and exoskeletons). Making generalisations is very difficult, as opinions even vary within companies as to the best strategy for their products. Many of the most well-known names are after the prestigious consumer market, and yet in many cases, the value that their products add could be much more useful in commercial or industrial applications. Some examples that come to mind are: if fitness trackers can achieve low-level FDA approval and then be linked to company-wide health insurance premiums; if virtual reality applications can be used to aid workers, from surgeons in the operating room to oil rig workers or even soldiers in front line duty; and if the technology can be used for improving efficiency and safety for warehouse or store logistics.”
Industrial applications
With regard to the industrial sector, Zervos sees a great deal of value in putting the technologies to use here. “The key advantages in the short- to medium- term in the industrial and military sectors are remote worker monitoring and hands-free instruction and/or communication. The introduction of wearable electronic devices will improve both overall safety and efficiency. Though we have just seen the end of Google Glass, many of the most promising applications that were being developed were around these types of applications, and this experience will be applied to product development in the future. There are also other, smaller smart glasses companies that are actively targeting this area.” Specific to the engineering sector,
Zervos cites the key benefits as being hands-free working, assistive applications (e.g. automatically loading appropriate instructions, safety documentation/ checks, or even displays from additional cameras), and better lone-worker tracking.
16
www.engineerlive.com
He adds: “Further into the future, assistive technologies will become reliable and safe enough to be introduced within military and industrial applications. For military applications alone, this has seen hundreds of millions of dollars of R&D funding, and though it remains a long term prospect, assistive exoskeletal devices will emerge within a generation.”
One woman working on the future potential of such technologies is Professor Rebecca Kramer from the School of Mechanical Engineering at Purdue University. Her presentation at the RISE event was entitled Soft Active Materials for Soft and Wearable Robotics. Kramer’s presentation focused on how future generations of robots, electronics and assistive wearable devices will include systems that are soft, elastically deformable and may adapt their functionality in unstructured environments. She explains that, “The emerging field of soft robotics utilises soft active materials to address these challenges and mimic the inherent compliance of natural soft-bodied
Examples of soft curvature sensors. Rebecca Kramer predicts that robotic fabrics will one day be natural for people to wear and interact with.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52