Imagine robotic clothing that puts itself on in the morning, helps prevent falls, and detects when the wearer is walking up a flight of stairs automatically giving them a power boost—simply assisting your granpa or a friend with disability to be active for longer.
- UK’s new VIVO Hub for Enhanced Independent Living has received a £11 million backing from the UKRI Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and will work with the NHS, charities, care providers and industrial partners 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.
- This fund seeks to address the needs of UK’s 6.7 million people with age or disability-related mobility issues by helping to develop clever robotic clothing which keeps people active and independent.
THE DEVICES: 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.
THE CONTEXT: 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.
WHAT THEY SAID:
The VIVO Hub aims to make clothing smarter, stronger, and more capable, helping wearers to be active for longer. 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.
— Professor Jonathan Rossiter
Project lead, Faculty of Science and Engineering
Bristol Robotics Laboratory
It is vital that research tackles the need to support and enable older people to live independent and fulfilled lives in their own homes. This funding represents a pioneering and innovative approach to supporting older people by designing technologies to support older people. I anticipate that these approaches, that critically move away from drugs and medications, are likely to be safe, effective, and accessible. This is an exciting and promising horizon in enhancing and promoting wellbeing and independence in later life.
— Professor Emily Henderson
Project Lead and Consultant Geriatrician
Bristol Medical School
The Vivo Hub will focus on co-developing and translating technology to improve mobility and independence for older people and individuals with disabilities. The UWE team will work on the technology integration with all partners and lead the user studies. We will enhance the BRL assisted living studio to conduct realistic tests of wearable technologies during daily life activities.
— Professor Carlos Cifuentes
UWE lead and Associate Professor, Human-Robot Interaction
University of the West of England
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.
— Professor Charlotte Deane
Executive Chair
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
