 | Weckerly, Amanda; Kim, Wooseok; Coram, Megan C.; Li, Ellen; Lin, Sophie; Unger, Gabriel; Szabo, Isabella; Okamura, Allison M.; Sung, Cynthia Design, Modeling, and Performance of a Robotic Zipper for Self-Donning Clothing (Conference) IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS), 2026, (Best Paper in Robot Mechanisms and Design). @conference{Weckerly_Zipper_2026,
title = {Design, Modeling, and Performance of a Robotic Zipper for Self-Donning Clothing},
author = {Amanda Weckerly and Wooseok Kim and Megan C. Coram and Ellen Li and Sophie Lin and Gabriel Unger and Isabella Szabo and Allison M. Okamura and Cynthia Sung },
url = {https://repository.upenn.edu/handle/20.500.14332/62991},
year = {2026},
date = {2026-09-09},
urldate = {2026-09-09},
booktitle = {IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS)},
abstract = {Dressing is a basic activity of daily living that can be difficult for individuals with mobility or dexterity limitations, resulting in the need for adaptive garments. We propose self-donning apparel enabled by robotic zippers and integrated seam design. The robot features a motor-driven spur gear that interlocks with zipper teeth, along with a snap-on mechanism for attachment and removal from the garment. We present a quasistatic analysis of the forces applied by the robotic zipper to the garment, quantifying how garment weight, orientation, and local curvature influence the required motor torque. Torque scales linearly with garment mass and depends on orientation, ranging from 0.045 N·m/kg for horizontally supported garments to 0.11 N·m/kg for vertically hanging garments. Across fabric entry angles, motor torque for untensioned garments varies by at most 3.7%, indicating minimal sensitivity to entry angle under low fabric tension. The zipper robot continuously traverses fabric
curvatures with radii as small as 10 mm for untensioned fabric and 20 mm for fabric tensioned to 2.9 N, representative of tight-fitting garments. These operating limits inform seam patterning for the design of future garments assembled by robotic zipping. The robotic zipper is integrated into garments with zipper pathways, curvatures, materials, and donning strategies of varying complexity, demonstrating both single- and multi-robot configurations for self-donning clothing.},
note = {Best Paper in Robot Mechanisms and Design},
keywords = {},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {conference}
}
Dressing is a basic activity of daily living that can be difficult for individuals with mobility or dexterity limitations, resulting in the need for adaptive garments. We propose self-donning apparel enabled by robotic zippers and integrated seam design. The robot features a motor-driven spur gear that interlocks with zipper teeth, along with a snap-on mechanism for attachment and removal from the garment. We present a quasistatic analysis of the forces applied by the robotic zipper to the garment, quantifying how garment weight, orientation, and local curvature influence the required motor torque. Torque scales linearly with garment mass and depends on orientation, ranging from 0.045 N·m/kg for horizontally supported garments to 0.11 N·m/kg for vertically hanging garments. Across fabric entry angles, motor torque for untensioned garments varies by at most 3.7%, indicating minimal sensitivity to entry angle under low fabric tension. The zipper robot continuously traverses fabric
curvatures with radii as small as 10 mm for untensioned fabric and 20 mm for fabric tensioned to 2.9 N, representative of tight-fitting garments. These operating limits inform seam patterning for the design of future garments assembled by robotic zipping. The robotic zipper is integrated into garments with zipper pathways, curvatures, materials, and donning strategies of varying complexity, demonstrating both single- and multi-robot configurations for self-donning clothing. |
