By: Andruw Lin
Inspired by the animated movie, “The Wrong Trousers,” which was about a pair of pants that could let people walk on walls, people started coming up with the idea of robotic clothing, which can help people in their daily lives. Fabric designers, computer programmers, and material scientist have all been improving their designs at a rapid pace. Last year, MIT scientists fabricated computer programmable threads and batteries that can be used to power the robotic textiles, which researchers in Australia created this June.
Researchers say that their work is at the point where the clothes could become more like a computer that can sense what the person that wears the clothes needs. They say that in the future clothes could have a lot of different offerings, such as helping elder people up with pants and also using maternity clothes to check on the fetal and improve successful birth rates.
In recent years, companies have already been releasing smart clothing products. One example is Google’s Jacquard project. Google partnered with brands like Adidas and Levi’s to create jackets, shoes, and backpacks with sensors in them, which allow the user to access their phones instantly and do things like changing music just by swiping their sleeves. These breakthroughs will be incredibly beneficial to our lives and make our everyday lives easier.
Source: https://s3.amazonaws.com/appforest_uf/f1659262340718x970872137187247100/Shapeshifting%2C%20robotic%20clothes%20could%20help%20people%20stand%20up%20-%20The%20Washington%20Post.pdf