Engineers at Texas A&M University, led by Ana Diaz Artiles, are developing soft
Today, astronauts have a choice of two typesspacesuits. One of them is a group of flight suits that are designed to protect crews from accidental depressurization during takeoff and reentry. The other is Russian and American full pressure suits, which have not changed since the early 1980s.
The problem is that they are not very comfortable.One reason is that space suits must contain air at sufficient pressure. But this turns the suit into a starfish-shaped balloon that is as difficult to bend as a car tire. To overcome this, the suit's joints consist of a series of constant-volume bellows. When these ring-shaped structures flex, air moves from one side to the other, allowing the joint to flex.
SmartSuit infographic.
Photo: Texas A&M University
The Texas A&M team's idea is toreplace these bellows with soft robotic actuators that do most of the work, keep the joint in position and allow the suit to fit more comfortably.
Researchers are now working on a prototyperobotic knee and simulate the mobility of a standard suit and a naked body. They found that such drives could save calories burned during a mission to Mars and allow astronauts to work with less sweat. The scientists' ultimate goal is to integrate these soft robotic actuators into a self-healing suit with built-in sensors.
Read more:
It has been hunted for centuries: what do we know about the planet Vulcan next to the Sun
Astronomers have found a planet near the Earth: it has a very strange orbit
Inexplicable duality found in elementary particle physics: what will it lead to