Massage Sleeve & Posture Corrector
During my internship at Waterloo Engineering, I worked in the lab, where I 3D modeled and designed parts using SolidWorks. I also managed communication with manufacturing companies and handled Arduino programming, electronics, and circuit diagrams. This was for a massage sleeve project that later became a company called Strivonix and an active posture corrector university project
Research Intern (Summer2024) University of Waterloo Engineering
A team consisting of the investigators from the University of Waterloo’s Microfluidics Laboratory employed soft robotics to create a massage sleeve with applications in lymphedema treatment and sports recovery as well as an active posture correction system.
Massage Sleeve
Background
Lymphedema is when lymph can’t flow normally and builds up in the soft tissues of a limb causing swelling in that area. Lymphedema is one of the major treatment complications and has become one of the greatest fears for survivors, second to cancer recurrence.Between 20 and 40 percent of women treated for breast cancer or other gynaecological surgeries experience lymphedema.
As the nodes’ locations cause fluid and proteins to collect in the arm, compression sleeves are used to try to restore normal flow. Current techniques, however, are both costly and inconvenient.
To overcome these issues, investigators from the University of Waterloo’s Microfluidics Laboratory, DIESEL Biomechanics Laboratory, Breast Rehab, and Myant, Inc. created a soft robotic sleeve controlled by a microfluidic chip that minimizes treatment cost, weight and power consumption.
Project Objectives
Achieve top-tier sequential actuation capability through an innovative microfluidic chip design, while matching it with a miniaturized and low-cost control box to attain industry-leading performance from a technical perspective.
Create an affordable, portable, and wearable active edema treatment sleeve/apparel to lower the user access threshold and enhance the device’s popularity and practicality.
Significantly reduce the noise and battery consumption of the device during operation, optimize the user’s auditory experience and battery life during daily use, and make it more suitable for long-term wearing needs.
Technical Details
It comprises more than 100 sensors and all of the supporting electronics and algorithms to automatically calibrate to and actuate anybody’s arm. Through the years we have improved upon its design and today our wearable arm neural interface has a sleek, form fitting design, is constructed with comfortable materials, zips on in seconds, and can be worn comfortably throughout the day.
The sleeve works by stimulating and monitoring the moment-to-moment activations of nerves and muscles. It will sense whether the user is making the right motions or not, triggering a feedback loop that enhances performance by stimulating the muscles to more beneficial and precise hand and wrist movements.
Product Advantages
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Novel and disruptive microfluidic chip design which offers state-of-the-art sequential actuation capability with a miniaturized and low-cost control box.
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Affordable, portable and wearable active edema sleeve/apparel.
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Much lower noise and battery consumption than competitive counterparts.
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Soft air bladder design that contours to the body while retaining a sleek low-profile aesthetics even when fully inflated.
Personal Design Contribution
Electronics Case/Box
This is a case that was designed to hold all of the electronics for the arm massager in the initial prototype. This included components such as the board, battery, pump, various adapters and more.
It was designed with an easily slide-removable case with only a single screw to hold it in place. The holes on the box were also sized to fit a air tube connector (the two largest circular holes), an power on/off switch (the large rectangular hole), a pump on/off button (small circular hole), and the charging port (small rectangular hole). This was printed in hard resin and then sanded and painted black. This had 3 iterations printed in PLA before the final print.
Air Restriction Tube Clips
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In the initial prototype for the sleeve, a coil of latex-like tubing was wrapped around the arm with small cinches in increments so that it created a propagating squeezing motion when filled with air. To make the design more manufacturable, this design was made to act as a quick clip to restrict the air.
With no moving parts, the two clips can clip together around the tube to restrict the air flow. This was printed in PLA and went to 15+ iterations adjusting the clip tolerances, restriction radius, bevel steepness, print angle and overall size with some designs also featuring a print-in-place hinge with only one set of clips.
Final Outcome
Potential applications
Treatment and management of lymphedema, dependent edema, CVI, venous leg ulcers, CVD, DVT, varicose veins, VTE, and gravitational eczema.
Treatment of musculoskeletal and spinal injuries (e.g. sportspersons and athletes).
Posture Corrector
Background
Postural misalignment occurs when the spine and shoulders deviate from their natural alignment, often caused by prolonged sitting, digital device use, or muscle fatigue. Over time, this leads to back, neck, and shoulder pain, as well as reduced mobility and breathing efficiency.
Conventional posture correctors such as elastic straps and braces help temporarily but are often uncomfortable, rigid, and fail to adapt to users’ natural movement, making them impractical for daily use. Other variants such on ones that simply notify the user of slouching lacks the immediate physical feedback to prevent users from reverting to slouching once the alert stops. Alert fatigue can also set in leading to user to tune them out or even disable them completely.
To overcome these limitations, engineers from the University of Waterloo’s Biomechanics and Smart Wearable Systems Laboratory, in collaboration with Myant, Inc., developed a soft robotic posture corrector that uses active pneumatic muscles to automatically assist shoulder alignment.
The device detects slouching in real time using motion sensors and gently activates its pneumatic actuators to guide the wearer back to proper posture. Controlled by a lightweight microchip, the system emphasizes comfort, adaptability, and long-term habit formation.
Project Objectives
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Develop a real-time posture detection and correction system using compact motion and angle sensors integrated with pneumatic actuators for dynamic and natural shoulder adjustment.
Design a lightweight, breathable, and flexible wearable that allows full mobility while delivering gentle corrective feedback through soft robotics.
Personal Design Contribution
Leg Loop
This is a loop that connects the metal cable from the pneumatic actuators to a strap that wraps around the leg. The bottom slit in the part is used with a fabric strap to be sewn onto the leg strap, and the triangular hole for the metal cable to be attached with a cinch. This part only had one iteration and was printed with hard resin.
Shoulder Loop
This is another loop that connects the pneumatic actuator directly to the shoulder straps. The iris-shaped end acts as the stop end for the pneumatic actuator so that when the tubing is wrapped around this end of the part up to the extruded edge, the extra thin extrusion helps to seal it so no air escapes. This was attached in this way with latex glue. The other end with the triangular loop attaches to the shoulder straps with a carabiner, hence the larger inner diameter of the loop. This was also printed in hard resin with one iteration.
Back Connector
This is a part that connected all of the previous two parts together. This part was sewn to a waist strap with a strip of fabric that threaded through the center slit and bottom cutout. The iris-shaped ends again attached directly to the pneumatic actuator in the same manner as the shoulder loops. The bottom part has a hole that goes through it to connect to the metal cables from the leg straps again with cinches. There is also internal tubing that runs from the pneumatic actuator connection to a burred side tube that would be inserted inside tubing which would then be connected to the pump so that the pneumatic actuators could be driven. This was also printed in hard resin in the final product, but first test-printed in PLA to test the tube connector diameter and the angled connections before the final resin print.
The entire ensemble of parts put together would create an X-shape that goes to shoulders to back to thighs which would then contract when the system detected slouching to create an active posture-correcting system.
Technical Details
The posture correction system uses air muscles in this X-formation to then correct the posture of the user by actively pulling on their shoulders back. Air muscles work by having an air input on one end of a flexible tube with the other end blocked. By then inflating the muscle with air, the muscle contracts
The posture corrects has two of these muscles that are powered by a small pump attached to the waist. My personal contribution creates the muscle structure with the shoulder loop and the back connector with the air from the pump being fed through the back connector into the muscles.
These muscles know when to activate by detecting when the user is slouching. This is mainly done with two sensors, the magnetic field sensor and the gyro sensor. The magnetic field sensor is used to get the distance between the upper torso and the waist with a magnet placed on the back and the sensor in the waist. The gyro then detects the orientation of the the upper torso. With these two sensors, the system is them able to differentiate between when the user is slouching or just simply bending down, improving the practicality of using such a device on the day-to-day.
Final Outcome
