Great Support to Our Faculty Member from the European Union

by Elçin Emekdar Karaman | Feb 21, 2022

Assoc. Prof. Özgür Atalay's project named "TEXWEAROTS" was granted support by the EU's Horizon Europe Program, European Research Council (ERC) Initial Level.

Textile-Based Wearable Soft Robotics with Integrated Sensing, Actuating and Self Powering Properties – TEXWEAROTS, which has been awarded with 1.5 million Euros by the European Union Horizon European Program European Research Council (ERC), aims produce textile-based robotic structures that will have the ability to sense, move and produce energy, and truly wearable soft robotic structures. It is aimed to use the robotic structures to be produced in this project, which is the second ERC project undertaken by our university, in the treatment of individuals with muscle weakness.

Although textile-based and silicone-based wearable soft robotic structures produced today are called soft systems, they contain a lot of rigid and heavy parts, and the energy requirement for these systems is another problem. The systems to be produced within the scope of the TeXWEAROTS project aim to find solutions to the problems faced by wearable robotic structures today. The knowledge that will emerge within the scope of this project will contribute not only to soft robotic systems, but also to studies in electronic textiles and flexible and wearable energy systems.

We congratulate our faculty member and wish him continued success.

About Assoc. Prof. Dr. Özgür Atalay

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Atalay completed his master's and doctorate studies in the field of smart textiles at the University of Manchester in England. Doing post-doctoral research in soft robotic systems at Harvard University in the USA, Dr. Atalay received a Marie Curie Individual Research Fellowship (IF) within the scope of the EU Horizon 2020 program in 2019. He continued to work in the field of smart textiles and soft robotics with various international and national projects he took in the following periods. Currently, he continues his work under the softsensorslab working group, which he manages together with Assoc. Prof. Dr. Gökhan İnce.

News: ITU Media and Communication Office

İTÜ Faculty of Textile Technologies and Design

Textile Engineering Department of Istanbul Technical University (İTÜ) is the first and the single one offering textile engineering education in Istanbul, and also comes first among the top textile engineering schools in Turkey. Its history could be traced back to 1955; the year in which the textile division was established in the body of Mechanical Engineering. The school gained its current name and independent status in 1983. Therefore, it is obvious that the Textile Engineering Department is fairly new compared to the history of İTÜ stretching back to 240 years.