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A Wearable E-Textile Force-Sensing Garment for Characterising Caring Touch
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Human Centered Technology, Media Technology and Interaction Design, MID. University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.ORCID iD: 0000-0001-5277-3863
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Human Centered Technology, Media Technology and Interaction Design, MID.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3572-6429
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Human Centered Technology, Media Technology and Interaction Design, MID.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-3098-0639
University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
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2026 (English)In: IEEE Sensors Journal, ISSN 1530-437X, E-ISSN 1558-1748, Vol. 26, no 10, p. 14906-14914Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

To enable better human-machine and human-robot interaction in healthcare applications, there is a need to improve haptic devices, assistive and companion robots to touch humans in a way that can be perceived as comfortable, safe and trusting. Towards this vision, we developed a flexible, wearable matrix force-sensing garment capable of recording dynamic force behaviour of caring touch from four healthcare experts in their natural therapy environment, and enable the touch recipient to provide feedback on the perceived quality of the same touches. Instead of assuming particular touch gestures are caring, we explored the application of the sensing and analysing system to characterise a caring quality of touch across different gestures. We were able to characterise distinctive features for touch aimed for sensory aspects and for moving the body. Our findings demonstrate that caring touch is not limited to specific gestures or a single parameter but is rather characterised by how the touch is performed across multiple features, with deliberateness - the careful and smoothness in the increasing and decreasing of force, emerging as a shared characteristic of caring touch regardless of the specific gesture employed. The study also demonstrates the feasibility of using raw tactile sensor data to assess subjective touch quality.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
IEEE, 2026. Vol. 26, no 10, p. 14906-14914
Keywords [en]
caring touch, affective haptics, machine learning, assistive robotics, care haptics, force sensing e-textile
National Category
Embedded Systems
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-376401DOI: 10.1109/jsen.2025.3640512ISI: 001765020400008Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105025399378OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-376401DiVA, id: diva2:2035297
Note

QC 20260722

Available from: 2026-02-04 Created: 2026-02-04 Last updated: 2026-08-10Bibliographically approved

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Zheng, Caroline YanLatupeirissa, Adrian BenignoChen, YutingBalaam, MadelineAndrikopoulos, Georgios

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Zheng, Caroline YanLatupeirissa, Adrian BenignoChen, YutingBalaam, MadelineAndrikopoulos, Georgios
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Media Technology and Interaction Design, MIDMechatronics and Embedded Control Systems
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