Imagine wearing clothing that could change its shape and stiffness to help you recover from a shoulder injury, reduce your risk of falling or assist with muscle weakness so you could be more active in your community.
It sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but an interdisciplinary team led by the University of Alberta has just been given the green light to make it a reality.
The federal government recently announced that it's giving the team $24 million over six years to work on technology that could increase independence and quality of life for millions of people.
"We're starting a smartwear revolution to create light, washable, affordable assistive technology that will be indistinguishable from your current clothing," says project lead Vivian Mushahwar, professor of medicine, Canada Research Chair in Functional Restoration and director of the Institute for Smart Augmentative and Restorative Technologies and Health Innovations (iSMART) and Smart Technology (ST) Innovations.
Mushahwar is a global expert in neural and rehabilitation engineering with a track record of leading successful interdisciplinary teams and commercializing adaptive devices.
With this project, Mushahwar brings together 64 researchers and collaborators from the U of A and across Canada, the United States and Europe. The team includes fashion designers, disability advocates, clothing manufacturers, visual artists, even a choreographer, as well as researchers from eight faculties across the College of Health Sciences, the College of Natural and Applied Sciences, and the College of Social Sciences and Humanities.
Mushahwar says the U of A's core facilities, well-equipped laboratories and strong support for interdisciplinary research allowed the project to win one of just six transformation grants from Canada's New Frontiers in Research Fund for high-risk, high-reward research this year.
"Collectively the time was just right for all of us to come together," Mushahwar says. "We have the resources, we have the skills, we have the expertise to do this work in a very productive fashion."
Putting users at the centre
Twenty-five per cent of Canadians have some form of muscle weakness for a variety of reasons ranging from sprains and broken bones to spinal cord injuries, strokes and aging. Current adaptive technologies such as exoskeletons, braces or electrical stimulation devices are often expensive, uncomfortable and impractical.
"There really is a lot of need out there," says Verna Yiu, professor of pediatrics and provost and vice-president (academic) of the U of A. "Smartwear will improve quality of life for those individuals, but also — if we can keep people healthy and out of hospital — then it will also make our health-care system more sustainable."
The team is taking an innovative co-design approach that puts future users at the centre of development, starting at the concept stage five years ago. Three groups of users — older adults who are at risk of falls and mobility loss, people with disabilities who could use additional support to complete daily activities, and health-care workers at risk of workplace injury — have been included.
This is very different from many research projects that begin with scientists creating prototypes based on their own interests and capacities, says Danielle Peers, associate professor of kinesiology and Canada Research Chair in Disability and Movement Cultures.
"The timing of user engagement (from the beginning), the depth and impact of our engagement on both process and product, and the purposeful engagement with the broadest possible range of end users are all unusual and transformative approaches to this kind of work," Peers says.
The team will share its progress in developing the new technology through two art and technology festivals in year three and year six.
"It's about trying to innovate and find new techniques for really centring the people with lived experience in the creation of this technology," says Marilène Oliver, associate professor of art and design with extensive experience depicting the impact of medical technology on people.
Stretching scientific boundaries
Think of Batman's cape made of memory cloth in the 2005 hit movie Batman Begins. Lucius Fox shows Bruce Wayne how he can simply touch his power glove to the cape to make it stiff so he can fly around Gotham City.
The research team has already invented several classes of composite materials that can sense temperature, strain and pressure and change their shape, size and stiffness. The challenge now is to create fibres from those materials to be woven into clothing. Sensors that use artificial intelligence will be embedded to determine user intentions — to move an arm, lift a heavy object or stand — and actuators that change the fabric as needed will make those intentions a reality, all of it powered by tiny batteries that look like buttons.
"Those multi-material fibres will eventually function as artificial muscles or stiffness-switching materials," explains Dan Sameoto, professor of mechanical engineering. "There's a lot of things that are technically quite challenging for us to do, but we have a team to pull it off. And hopefully this project will be a springboard for many more transformative projects to come, so we can develop expertise within Alberta for smart manufacturing technologies."
The project will provide unique training opportunities for 120 undergraduate summer students and nearly 70 graduate and postdoctoral students over the six years.
The other co-principal investigators on the project are Patricia Dolez, associate professor of human ecology; Anastasia Elias, professor of chemical and materials engineering and associate dean of research strategy in the Faculty of Engineering; Chester Ho, professor of medicine; Reisa Klein, adjunct academic colleague in modern languages and cultural studies; Mahdi Tavakoli, professor of electrical and computer engineering and director of mechatronics engineering; Adalberto Loyola-Sanchez, assistant professor of medicine; and Lingzi Sang, assistant professor of chemistry.
"This meaningful investment underscores the University of Alberta's commitment to pushing the boundaries of interdisciplinary research. By bringing together experts from diverse fields, we are poised to significantly enhance the quality of life for many people," says Aminah Robinson Fayek, vice-president (research and innovation). "This project exemplifies our dedication to translating innovative research into real-world solutions that benefit our communities."
