Without the use of batteries or microchips, a new type of computer can enable a jacket to raise and lower its own hood, and might eventually enable disabled wearers to move. Fulton Schools Assistant Professor Wenlong Zhang, a mechanical engineer whose research interests include the design, modeling and control of cyber-physical systems — with applications in healthcare, robotics and manufacturing — foresees myriad possibilities for soft robotics technologies being used to develop these kinds of wearable computer systems. The soft robots should be able to integrate easily and safely  into normal human activity, Zhang says, although he thinks it could take as long as a decade to clear the hurdles to make them widely available to the public.