The big issues

Non-verbal, or embodied forms of communication, such as gesture, posture, or body language allow people to form connections with each other. Clothing and other tools are commonly used to enhance our ability to communicate in this way. Wearable Robots for Embodied Communication (WREC) could augment the human body, allowing enhancement of embodied communication far beyond what is currently possible. This could help the >300k people with complex communication difficulties in the UK participate more fully in everyday life, make dance and performance accessible to a wider range of audiences, and ultimately provide us with new ways and methods of connecting with each other.  

However, technology alone is not sufficient to develop WREC. Communication aids can perpetuate structural inequalities or contribute to stigmas associated with unconventional means of communication, necessitating a sociotechnical approach. This sociotechnical approach requires sharing knowledge and practices across disciplines – communication-based professionals may be unaware of recent developments in soft robotics; roboticists do not know what users of communication aids want or need; and a best-practise methodology for investigating these issues needs to be developed.  

Our response

We have partnered with Air Giants  (large, inflatable pneumatically controlled soft robots), contemporary dance company, Neon Dance (neondance.org), and speech and language therapists to begin to address these unanswered questions. Together, we will use participatory methods to investigate how human/machine symbiosis might enhance embodied communication and how WREC can be simultaneously co-created and understood.

The project aims to: 

• Understand the overlap between the needs of professionals who rely on embodied communication (i.e., professional dancers and speech and language therapists) and the novel capabilities of wearable soft robots; 
• consider qualitative methodologies for further understanding the importance of embodied communication in supporting social participation and the role that robotics could play in this; 
• co-design a first WREC prototype for potential use in a contemporary dance performance 
• record high-quality media of this prototype in use to demonstrate WREC to potential collaborators, industry partners and funders. 

The outcomes of this project will be used as a springboard to apply for larger funding needed to take the collaboration to the next level.