Pneumatically-actuated haptic interactions in garment design: A maker approach

With the 21st century, the perspective of the fashion designer on design has begun to transform. The role of fashion and fashion designer, which changed drastically as a result of technological developments, has evolved towards producing products with functionality instead of producing products just for dressing. In this context, the garments transformed into an object that interacts with the user and smart devices, more than just being a dress. One of the most interesting types of these interactions is the interaction of the user with virtual environments. The users have begun to experience virtual environments more effectively by means of clothing. This study deals with the design and manufacturing of a wearable pneumatic prototype with haptic feedback using the Maker approach. Using Arduino mega, the prototype produced was enabled to work simultaneously with the selected image by programming with open-source codes. The aim of this approach was to increase the impact of the image/virtual environment on the user. The produced prototype was simulated on the 3D simulation program and the pressure values were obtained from the stress map. The modeling of the air sacs used in the pneumatic system was made in the ANSYS software. The mechanical analyzes were performed and compared with the values obtained from the 3D simulation program. At the last stage of the study; where the advantages and disadvantages of the prototype were evaluated and the requirements for producing a more advanced model were discussed, a modular wearable haptic feedback garment namely PuzzleSuit was proposed.