C2I 2023 Medical & Healthcare Winner: The SMART Suit

Category: Medical & Healthcare
Project: The SMART Suit
Partners: Duchenne UK with Spinal Muscular Atrophy UK and The Inclusionaries Lab at The University of Liverpool

The 2024 C2I winner in the healthcare and medical category is The SMART Suit, a robotic wearable technology that can discretely and comfortably support arm movement for those with muscular diseases and a variety of other conditions.

Loss of upper body mobility seriously impacts people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) and Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA), restricting independence and the ability to do many of the things they enjoy. Duchenne UK, Spinal Muscular Atrophy UK, and The Inclusionaries Lab at The University of Liverpool are now working together to create The SMART Suit to return some of this independence, particularly for the many young people affected by these neuromuscular diseases (NMDs).

The project has its roots as far back as 2018, when Duchenne UK invested £70,000 in a project led by Solid Biosciences to develop a prototype exoskeleton to boost upper body strength for people with DMD. That soft exoskeleton prototype was based on Twisted String Actuator (TSA) technology created by the Stanford Research Institute. TSAs - essentially strings of fabric twisted together to boost strength - have the benefit of being cheap and lightweight with low energy requirements, yet capable of delivering considerable power.