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Seeking UK cloud computing company to join Interreg bid to develop intelligent clothing for disabled people

Country of Origin: France
Reference Number: RDFR20170821001
Publication Date: 21 August 2017

Summary

A French textiles institute is part of a consortium applying for the INTERREG 2 Seas program "Development of Adapted, Connected and Intelligent Clothing for Disabled People (ACID)". They are seeking a UK cloud computing company to complete their consortium via research cooperation agreement, to assist in the co-development of novel adapted, connected and intelligent garments to help disabled people gain more independence.

Description

Disabled people represent over 50 million persons in the EU (10% of the population). This very important group of European citizens represents rapidly growing consumer markets, with special needs in terms of personalised adapted products and services. The customisation need for disabled people is immense and is today covered mainly by small producers offering marginally functional and in most of the cases completely dull and not attractive products. Also, they have strong requirements for increasing their mobility and facilitating their everyday life.  



This project aims to create a new systematic design process of garments oriented to the target population and exploit its distribution and marketing strategy. Concretely, the project therefore intends to :



• develop a CAD and 3D printing-based systematic garment design process, adapted to deformed body shapes of physically disabled people as well as their restrictions of physical activities, and permitting to meet their special functional requirements and easily integrate both generic and special physiological sensors. The used human friendly 3D printing materials will be fully integrated into the adapted garment for improving the level of comfort and easy-care and the quality of measured signals.



• build a local decision support system using the sensors, the microcontroller and conduction threads integrated into the garment with the support of functional 3D printing materials in order to perform online monitoring of general health state and well-being, and special symptoms, as well as communications with the cloud computing platform.



• build a stable, efficient, and geographically close regional supply chain for quickly producing adapted, connected and intelligent garments meeting various requirements.  



• develop a series of prototypes of garments in order to validate the proposed design process.



• propose a new distribution and marketing strategy adapted to the target populations.



The multi-disciplinary team forming the current consortium (ranging from garment designers and producers, electronic device providers, ergonomics experts, IT providers, research laboratories, disabled specialists, medical institutions, marketing experts), is committed to the joint exploitation of their existing prototypes, research results and technologies, already mastered by different partners in a complementary way. 



The proposed project enables to establish a Two Seas Cross-border Cooperation-Based Platform integrating and linking all local stakeholders and tools necessary for successful and sustainable implementation in this European region. 



The consortium consists of a UK university, a French textiles association, a Belgian university and a French R&D foundation. They are seeking a UK cloud computing company to complete the consortium to help adapt and house the data gathered from the innovative clothing sensors, via research cooperation agreement. To meet the requirements of the grant they must be located in the South-East of England.



Deadline for this EU application: 27 October 2017

Deadline for expressions of interest in this profile: 31 August 2017

Advantages and Innovations

Considered as a wearable system, a connected and intelligent garment forms an instrumented second skin of the wearer. During the design stage, it should permit to integrate the following components: 



1) sensors monitoring physiological signals (skin temperature, breath, heart rhythm, sweat, movements) and environmental signals (air temperature, humidity, air pollution, …), 



2) actuators controlling clothing movements and displaying visual effects, 



3) a microcontroller gathering and processing all measured data, 



4) a communication system with a cloud computing platform,

 

5) an energy supplying unit, 



6) conduction threads connecting to different electronical components. Also, aesthetic and comfort should be considered in the intelligent garment design. 



Unlike the existing connected objects, for a connected and intelligent garment, the instrumental effect should be less visible in order to show acceptable appearance and comfort. The processes of fabric and garment making should be carefully designed in terms of signal reliability, human comfort, easy-care, and fashion satisfaction. For the project's target populations (seniors and disabled people), the consortium also need to consider the conditions of easy-wear, adapted to their specific physical restrictions.

Stage Of Development

Concept stage

Requested partner

Type: Industry



Activity of the partner: Cloud computing and big data management



Specific role of partner sought: Assist with the storage and adaptation of the sensor data from the intelligent clothing, under a research cooperation agreement.