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The Business Magazine July 2024
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Robotic clothing to aid walking a step closer after £11m funding

The Business Magazine article image for: Robotic clothing to aid walking a step closer after £11m funding
9 October 2024

Clever robotic clothing to help addres the needs of the UK’s 6.7 million people with age or disability-related mobility issues, has received backing from the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The new VIVO Hub for Enhanced Independent Living will work with the NHS, charities, care providers and industry to develop healthcare technologies to restore the independence of older people and people with disabilities by developing in-home, on-body physical assistance devices to enhance their lives.

VIVO devices include clothing that ‘puts itself on’, smart garments to help prevent falls, and soft exosuits to help people get up from a chair, climb stairs and walk for longer. VIVO power clothing combines AI and digital monitoring technologies with on-body energy storage and power delivery to help people to go to the shops, meet friends and be active in their communities.

The Hub is led by the University of Bristol with partners University of the West of England (UWE), University College London (UCL), Imperial College London and the University of Strathclyde.

Project lead Professor Jonathan Rossiter, based in Bristol’s Faculty of Science and Engineering and Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL), explained: “Smart robotic clothing has the potential to act as an enabler of movement, activity and independence for people with disability and frailty.

“The VIVO Hub aims to make clothing smarter, stronger, and more capable, helping wearers to be active for longer. Imagine robotic clothing that puts itself on in the morning, helps prevent falls, and detects when the wearer is walking up stairs and automatically gives them a power boost.

“Our ambitious vision is to redefine how we think of clothing. Smart robotic clothing is not just for fashion and warmth, but also provides health monitoring, physical assistance, rehabilitation, helping to restore an active and independent life.”

According to the Health Foundation REAL Centre, the UK will require 627,000 extra care staff by 2030 to cope with its ageing population.

VIVO is one of five new hubs that will deliver a world-leading research programme focused on advancing and developing novel engineering and physical sciences research.

EPSRC Executive Chair Professor Charlotte Deane added: “The five new hubs bring together a wealth of expertise from across academia, industry and charities to improve population health, transform disease prediction and diagnosis, and accelerate the development of new interventions.

“They represent an exciting range of adventurous techniques and approaches that have great potential to improving the lives of millions of people here in the UK and across the world.”


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Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.

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