Science & Tech · Science & Environment · 3 hrs ago
MIT team develops flexible sheet that can track surface movement
Engineers at MIT have developed a flexible sheet that can track changes in its shape as it bends and folds.
Optical fibres inside the sheet carry light, and an algorithm uses changes in that light to reconstruct the sheet’s shape.
The current prototype is bulky, but it continued working after being pierced in a demonstration.
A co-author says its shape measurements have an error of less than 0.4 centimetres, compared with about 1 to 2 centimetres for designs using rigid sensors.
The team hopes the technology could eventually be made into clothing to track body movements in virtual reality or during physical therapy.
It could also provide more detailed movement tracking than systems that follow fixed points on a person.
The researchers plan to make the prototype thinner, with alternative methods potentially allowing fibres thinner than a human hair.
MIT engineers have developed a flexible sheet that uses optical fibres and an algorithm to reconstruct its shape as it bends and folds.
The prototype can track surface movement with an error of less than 0.4 centimetres, according to co-author Qifan Yu.
The technology could eventually be made into a wearable garment for tracking movement in virtual reality or physical therapy.
The current prototype is bulky, and its optical fibres are 1 millimetre thick.
The team plans to make the prototype smaller and says alternative methods could produce fibres tens of micrometres thick.
- Who
- Engineers at MIT developed the sheet. Mechanical engineering graduate student Qifan Yu is a co-author of the research.
- What
- They created a flexible sheet that uses optical fibres to reconstruct its shape as it moves.
- When
- The story was published on 2026-10-12.
- Where
- MIT.
- Why
- The technology could track movement for applications such as virtual reality and physical therapy.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
PC Gamer reported on the MIT team's flexible sheet and its potential applications.
The team plans to trim down the prototype and says alternate fabrication methods could make its fibres tens of micrometres thick.
- Current fibre thickness
- 1 millimetre
- Movement reconstruction error
- Less than 0.4 centimetres
- Existing rigid-sensor error
- Around 1 to 2 centimetres
- Potential thinner fibre size
- Tens of micrometres
What people are saying
People have used waveguides to sense the shape of a line, which they have applied to a robot arm to see how it curves, but they haven’t been applied to surface shape sensing, to reconstruct the 3D shape of a surface. That’s what we’re trying to do here.
Existing designs, which are based on rigid sensors, have errors of around 1 to 2 centimeters.
In physical therapy, you often need to gather patient data on how they are moving and stretching their arm during rehabilitation, for example. Surface shape sensing could be very useful in that way.
Sources
Related news
Study finds ancient gut microbes shared by Hadza and Tsimane
A 1960 Population Model’s 2026 Doomsday Forecast Fell Behind Reality
Roman Villa Excavations Near Wrexham Reveal Earlier Activity and Later Changes
Aging-related DNA changes may help explain why large dogs die younger
Debate over Monte Verde reopens questions about the first Americans
Africa’s solar installations set a record as official data misses much of the growth
Elephant remains reveal a wetland and woodland habitat in ancient Israel
Northeast monsoon likely to begin over southern India within days
Hyderabad workshop discusses how to make science easier to understand
São Paulo’s century-old underground power network limits weather exposure
Quantum computer demonstrates repeated checks and resets to control errors
