Abstract
The booming wearable market and recent advances in material science has led to the rapid development of the various wearable sensors, actuators, and devices that can be worn, embedded in fabric, accessorized, or tattooed directly onto the skin. Wearable actuators, a subcategory of wearable technology, have attracted enormous interest from researchers in various disciplines and many wearable actuators and devices have been developed in the past few decades to assist and improve people’s everyday lives. In this paper, we review the actuation mechanisms, structures, applications, and limitations of recently developed wearable actuators including pneumatic and hydraulic actuators, shape memory alloys and polymers, thermal and hygroscopic materials, dielectric elastomers, ionic and conducting polymers, piezoelectric actuators, electromagnetic actuators, liquid crystal elastomers, etc. Examples of recent applications such as wearable soft robots, haptic devices, and personal thermal regulation textiles are highlighted. Finally, we point out the current bottleneck and suggest the prospective future research directions for wearable actuators.
Highlights
The global wearable market showed a dramatic swell in the past decade with a market size valued at USD 28 billion in 2020 and is expected to expand continually in the decade
We review the actuation mechanisms, structures, applications, and limitations of recently developed wearable actuators including pneumatic and hydraulic actuators, shape memory alloys and polymers, thermal and hygroscopic materials, dielectric elastomers, ionic and conducting polymers, piezoelectric actuators, electromagnetic actuators, liquid crystal elastomers, etc
Fiber‐based actuators are uration that two compliant electrodes are coated on each side of a thin polymer film to more and capacitor have demonstrated capabilities to elastic be usedelectrostatic for personalmodel thermal formpromising a deformable (Figure 7).their
Summary
The global wearable market showed a dramatic swell in the past decade with a market size valued at USD 28 billion in 2020 and is expected to expand continually in the decade. People expect the wearable actuators to be lightweight, inconspicuous, lifelike, and versatile when on the human body, while still achieving their purpose outstandingly These requirements impelled the development of soft actuation technologies and have attracted enormous interest from researchers in various disciplines [2]. Unlike those traditional actuators, these actuators are small and light, and are not limited to the electrical–mechanical force conversion method. Applications of wearable actuators mainly include wearable robotics, haptic devices, and smart textiles. Examples of the recent applications such as wearable soft robots, haptic devices, and personal thermal regulation textiles are highlighted. We point out the current bottleneck and suggest the prospective future research directions for wearable actuators
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