uKnit: A Position-Aware Reconfigurable Machine-Knitted Wearable for Gestural Interaction and Passive Sensing using Electrical Impedance Tomography
Catherine Tianhong Yu, Riku Arakawa, James McCann, Mayank Goel
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A scarf is inherently reconfigurable: wearers often use it as a neck wrap, a shawl, a headband, a wristband, and more. We developed uKnit, a scarf-like soft sensor with scarf-like reconfigurability, built with machine knitting and electrical impedance tomography sens- ing. Soft wearable devices are comfortable and thus attractive for many human-computer interaction scenarios. While prior work has demonstrated various soft wearable capabilities, each capability is device- and location-specific, being incapable of meeting users’ various needs with a single device. In contrast, uKnit explores the possibility of one-soft-wearable-for-all. We describe the fabrication and sensing principles behind uKnit, demonstrate several exam- ple applications, and evaluate it with 10-participant user studies and a washability test.