prototype.
Properties: Diameters 10mm, 20mm, and 40mm, rating length
30mm– 9,000mm, no stick-slip effect, low weight, hermeti-
cally sealed.
Application: Actuating devices connecting the Hylite plates into
a singular networked whole.
The Black Box (by ONL and HRG with Festo air valves and switching components): A hard-edged box housing the switching mecha-
nisms: I/O boards connected to the 72 valves controlling the
air pressure lock of the fluidic muscles. The box has provisions
to attach the compressed air intake pipes through distribution
channels; houses the CPU and power back-up mechanisms.
Application: Used as a secure container, housing the brain of the
installation through which the fluidic muscles are instructed to
attain the contraction or relaxation modes.
Flexible Skins:
Hylite panels: Hylite is a sandwich sheet comprising two thin
aluminium layers with a plastic core in between. It was devel-
oped for car body parts. It integrates high flexural stiffness and
extreme lightness. Compared to sheet steel with the same
flexural stiffness (0.74 mm) and aluminium ( 1.0 mm), Hylite is
65% and approximately 30% lighter respectively. These
results have been obtained by combining the best properties of
aluminium and plastic in a single material. The Hylite panels
were specifically selected for the skin of the prototype due to
the flexibility criterion and the ease involved in its handling.
Lycra-based fabric: Lycra is a stretchable fabric often used for
sports clothing. The translucency of the fabric varies according
to the degree of stretching.
Application: Spatial envelope, interactive furniture surface, pro-
jection surface.
Control System: Sensing devices used to enrich the activity
recognition criterion of the prototype. The selection of the
sensors involved two basic distinctions in the manner in which
we wanted data to be sensed: the global level—dealing with
proximity of users with respect to the prototype; and the local
level—dealing with finer adjustments made to the panels by
means of individual inputs through touch sensors, hence pro-
viding partial control by the user.
Sensors: Proximity sensors for sensing the distance of the
occupant from the installation and touch sensors for sens-
ing the amount of pressure exerted upon a surface.
Software: Virtools Dev 3.0, software is used for developing
an inherent connectivity between the sensed data and the
expected behavior output from the prototype (by means of
programming output rules for the system). The software is
used as the main computation tool that receives inputs
from the MIDI device (sensed data), processes data in
accordance with the scripted behaviors programmed into it
and sends output digital signals via PCI cards device, which
are directly linked with actuating mechanisms.
The graphical scripts are systematically composed to
communicate dynamic data, related with proximity of users
(through sensors) to a set of arrays built into the software
file, which act as the interface between the real and the
virtual worlds. These arrays are constantly updated via the
‘sensor reading script’ developed at the HRG, which pri-
marily utilize MIDI inputs for this purpose. Apart from this
script, a parallel operation that concerns the status of each
system unit (a component attached with the muscle) is
tracked constantly in real time by means of updating the
corresponding valve status linked with the pistons. These
two operations formulate the so-called first-level opera-
tions of the scripts, which are aimed at capturing the con-
text within which the prototype is embedded. The second
level involves a ‘data processing’ script to check in parallel
with the previously acquired information: the Status and
the Sensor reading scripts, hence abstracting the change in
context by means of reading the updated array and the
current position status of each system unit. This informa-
tion is gathered by means of compiling it in the form of
genotypic numeric strings, which are forwarded to the
Smart lab PCI cards.
The PCI cards, as mentioned earlier, further relate
these numeric strings in correspondence with the airlock
valves status and runs re-checks for any updated
arrays in parallel to create a phenotype string, which
involves a long numeric string equivalent to the
number of pneumatic muscles in the prototype and repre-
sents the new on, off status commands by means of
numeric 1 and 2 codes. This processed data directly com-
municates with the airlock valves and results in the open-
ing and closing of valves corresponding with the numeric
data delivered to the black box, hence actuating specific
sets of pneumatic muscles to produce an appropriate
system response. c