MIT student Manisha Mohan develops wearable adhesive to prevent rape, sexual assault

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NEW YORK – An Indian grad student and researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Manisha Mohan, has come up with a wearable adhesive that can help prevent rape and sexual assault.

Mohan has invented Intrepid, an adhesive made up of a couple of conductive layers and hydrogel that can be stuck on to a woman’s underwear or bra and will detect if it is being moved forcibly, working in both passive and active modes.

In passive mode where the user is conscious and alert, Intrepid can be tapped to set off a Bluetooth signal which is sent to the user’s phone and will trigger a loud noise to alert people nearby and send out distress signals to pre-defined family members or emergency services in the form of an alarm, a text message and a recorded phone call if the user does not respond within 30 seconds.

Intrepid can be actively used if a woman is unconscious, not in the position to fight against the assaulter, intoxicated, bed-ridden, elderly, disabled or a minor.

So basically, if somebody is trying to remove clothing forcibly from a woman’s body, a message is sent to their phone to confirm if the act was done with or without consent and an alert will be sent out to someone who can help, accordingly.

According to Wearable, Mohan and her team surveyed 338 sexual assault survivors on factors like design, functionality and cultural sensitivity and she is also researching on how olfactory stimuli, how smell affects sexual arousal, could be built into the device to provide a more immediate response.

Mohan hopes this will help women in India so that they feel safe when walking at night and don’t have to reach home before dark along with helping to detect and prevent college campus assaults, child sex abuse and the abuse of elderly and disabled people.

“Our work examines methods to prevent sexual assault, from pre-historic times to latest technologies, to inform contemporary designs. Intrepid investigates multiple methods to detect initial signs of assault and develop methods for communication and prevention of assault. We also explore olfactory stimuli as a potential means to prevent sexual assault in real-time.” Mohan explained, on the MIT website.

Every 98 seconds, a person in the United States is sexually abused. Every 16 hours, a woman in the United States is murdered by her romantic partner or ex-partner. Sexual abuse, assault, and harassment are regarded as some of the most common human rights violations in the world by the United Nations.

Earlier, Mohan had developed CAPS, wearable on-body capsules which produce repulsive odor to deter sexual abuse. The capsules can be triggered by self-actuation, i.e. by pressure or when an act of forceful removal of clothing is identified. The formulation of odor involves compounds like civet reconstruction, 1-4, butadiene and more.

In 2013, Mohan, then an aeronautical engineering student in Chennai, had developed an electric bra, after the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old student in Delhi. Mohan, along with fellow students Niladhri Basu Bal and Rimpi Tripathi, decided to put their skills to good use and develop a garment which could prevent future attacks.