Smartwear Revolution
The Future of Smartwear for Assistive Technology
Technology & Textiles
Smartwear Revolution combines clothing and technology in a new way. It creates smart fabrics with special fibres that can help support movement, improve strength, and make everyday tasks easier and safer.
Art & Design
The Art & Design Working Group is preparing to host two public-facing art and technology festivals designed to bring situated and cultural knowledge into the Smartwear Revolution initiative.
Social Justice
Guided by disability and social justice principles and frameworks, SJWG invites and supports the full participation of People with Lived Experience (PLEX) within Smartwear.
We are inventing a radically new form of smartwear designed to address Canadian and global assistive-technology needs by innovating smart fibres.
Smartwear Revolution
The Smartwear Revolution research project brings together an international, multidisciplinary team and centers co-design with PLEX (People with Lived Experience), integrating expertise across technology, textiles, art, design, and social justice.
The goal of the Smartwear Revolution project is to develop innovative clothing technologies that augment mobility, independence, and the ability to alleviate challenges associated with muscle weakness. The project is supported by a six-year New Frontiers in Research Fund Transformation Grant running from 2025 to 2031.
Smartwear research team
The Smartwear Research Team brings together expertise from engineering, health sciences, arts and design, rehabilitation medicine, and social justice. We are working to create a radically new form of smartwear designed to address Canadian and global assistive technology needs through innovations in smart fibres.
With sensing, actuating, and battery-power capabilities built directly into the fibres, our innovative smartwear aims to adapt clothing stiffness and shape to provide physical support and movement augmentation as needed.
These smartwear fibres incorporate intelligent technologies that identify user intent and dynamically adjust the fabric’s properties to support trunk, arm, and leg movements during daily activities such as self-care, reaching, and carrying loads.
Adaptive Fibres
Assistive technologies, designed to support people with disabilities, can increase quality of life and prevent injuries. The Smartwear Revolution project aims to create comfortable, affordable, and desirable smart garments that have the capacity to support and augment muscle strength.
Our smart garments will be made from responsive fabric that stiffens and relaxes as needed to provide support for up to 30% of a user’s strength, thereby reducing preventable injuries and increasing the capacity for PLEX users to engage more fully and for longer durations in their daily activities and within their communities of meaning.
