South Korea is working on a robotic breakthrough that could soon make wearable robots feel as natural as clothing. According to researchers soon turn your clothes can turn into assistive tech. they have found a way to mass-produce ultra-thin “fabric muscles” that can flex and lift like human tissue, redefining how wearable robots support people in everyday life.
Scientists at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) developed an automated weaving system that spins shape-memory alloy coils more thinner than a strand of hair.
Robotics Fabric Muscle
The weigh is less than half an ounce, and still this new material can lift around 33 pounds. That makes it light, flexible and strong enough to power the next generation of wearable robotics.
Researchers from the Advanced Robotics Research Center at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) have built an automated weaving system that continuously produces ultra-thin, shape memory alloy coil yarn, thinner than a human hair.
This breakthrough allows large-scale production of lightweight, flexible artificial muscles for next-generation wearable robots.
Wearable Robotics “Fabric Muscles”
We have seen most wearable robots that relied on motors or pneumatic systems making them bulky, loud and expensive. There is limitation with movement too.
KIMM’s solution replaces the metal core of earlier coil designs with natural fiber. This shift allows the yarn to stretch more freely while keeping its power. The upgraded weaving system now produces these fabric muscles continuously, paving the way for large-scale manufacturing.
The result is a lightweight actuator that moves naturally with the body.
Ultra-Light Fabric Muscle
Scientists team built the world’s first clothing-type wearable robot weighing less than 4.5 pounds. A smaller version designed for shoulder support weighs only about 1.8 pounds. These results show that fabric muscles can do much more than help factory workers; they can restore independence and mobility for people who need it most.
Led by Principal Researcher Cheol Hoon Park, the team’s system uses 25-micrometer-wide shape memory alloy (SMA) wire processed into coil-shaped yarn to create fabric muscles that can lift 10 to 15 kilograms while weighing just 10 grams.
KIMM’s fabric muscle, by contrast, mimics the structure and flexibility of human tissue, allowing wearable robots to move more naturally and assist multiple joints simultaneously.
For continuous production, they replaced the metallic core with natural fiber and redesigned weaving machine and actuator’s structure.
Dr. Cheol Hoon Park said, “Our development of continuous mass-production technology for fabric muscle—the key component of clothing-type wearable robots—will significantly improve quality of life in fields such as healthcare, logistics, and construction”.
“We will continue to build on KIMM’s extensive wearable robotics technologies to accelerate commercialization and lead the global wearable robotics market.”
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