Garments printed with flexible sensors could help people with severely limited mobility control assistive devices such as powered wheelchairs.

High level quadriplegics have traditionally utilized such control mechanisms as head controls, sip and puff controls, and an assortment of strategically placed switches to control their powered wheelchair. "But the disadvantage of these devices is that patients must fit the capacities of the machine, rather than the other way around," says Ferdinando Mussa-Ivaldi, a Northwestern scientist working on the device.

The sensor-ladened shirt can be programmed to respond to movements that the user can repeatedly accomplish in a natural way such as upper arm, shoulder, head, and neck movements. This type of user tailored control device may make it possible to control not only powered wheelchairs but almost any powered assistive device, computers, and possibly even common everyday devices and appliances.

The shirt which uses 52 flexible, piezoresistive sensors was developed at the University of Pisa. The research into the application of this technology was conducted at the Robotics Laboratory of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago.

Information Source: Technology Review