Soft Vine Robots Pull On Protective Suits and Aid Emergency Intubation

The clothing project began with a personal inconvenience. Kim Nam Gyun, a postdoctoral researcher at KAIST, was caught in sudden rain while cycling and could not put on a raincoat or close its zipper with one hand. He thought a coat that could put itself on would be convenient. His team turned the idea into a research paper. It embeds soft, air-pressure-driven 'vines' in clothing. When pressurized, the vines carry fabric upward and close to the wearer's body, much as ivy climbs a support, and the process can finish even if the person does not stand still. A complete protective suit takes about 10 seconds.

Ryu Jee-Hwan, a professor on the team, said such robots move by growing at their tips, which lets them move steadily over curved surfaces, pass through narrow gaps and follow the shape of their surroundings, whether slippery, sticky or sloped. The team cited semiconductor cleanrooms and emergency services as possible applications. Cleanroom workers must change into full dust-free suits each time they enter or leave, a cumbersome process in which improper dressing can cause contamination. Emergency responders handling chemical accidents or infectious disease scenes need to put on protective gear quickly, often with a colleague's help. The self-dressing system would remove the need for extra hands or complex training, the researchers said.

The team also pointed to older people and people with limited mobility, for whom reduced hand strength and restricted shoulder movement can make daily dressing difficult. Ryu said in an interview that while everyone discusses AI, mechanical engineering can also change the world.

The underlying technology dates to 2017, when researchers in Stanford University's Department of Mechanical Engineering moved the logic of vine growth into the lab. They made a soft tube sealed at both ends and folded inside itself like an inside-out sock. When air pressure is pumped in from the fixed end, the tip everts outward continuously. The prototype used thin plastic film and ordinary compressed air, with no motors or sensor arrays. According to the report, it could briefly sprint at up to about 35 kilometers per hour, pass through gaps narrower than its own diameter, lift 100 kilograms and coil into an antenna shape in tight spaces. A conventional robot moves each joint and its whole body against the environment, so it can jam when caught. A vine robot keeps its body still and extends new material from inside to the tip. Irregular cavities, curved channels and obstacle-covered surfaces that are nearly impossible for conventional robots become a matter of changing air-pressure distribution.

Researchers then applied the same principle to medical tubes. Hard robots transfer force rigidly when they touch the body, concentrating pressure at contact points and risking injury. Soft robots are naturally suited to contact with people. The report also mentions a magnetic slime robot developed by Harbin Institute of Technology and the Chinese University of Hong Kong that can enter the body to remove swallowed objects such as batteries and is expected to be used in digestive-tract surgery or targeted drug delivery. The vine robot eliminates pushing and replaces it with growing.

Human airways, digestive tracts and blood vessels contain many curved passages. Current medical devices mostly rely on pushing, rigidity and the operator's feel when navigating them. The airway evolved to block food and foreign objects, and emergency intubation must place a breathing tube quickly and accurately. According to statistics from a UC Santa Barbara research team cited in the report, first-attempt failure for out-of-hospital endotracheal intubation is close to 35%. Video laryngoscopes have improved the situation, but they still require the operator to see the airway opening and manually guide the tube through curved anatomy, a skill that depends heavily on experience.

Elliot Hawkes's team designed a soft robotic intubation system, SRIS, based on the vine robot principle. It does not require the operator to see the airway first and then push a tube. Only the tip advances; the body stays still, creating no friction and avoiding scrapes against the airway wall. This frictionless property lets the device navigate complex anatomical structures without being forced through them. Tests were conducted on cadavers with 8 emergency responders, 4 emergency medical technicians and 4 assistant emergency responders, according to the report. After 5 minutes of training, 87% completed intubation on the first attempt, with an average time of 21 seconds. Under the same conditions with video laryngoscopy, the success rate was 63% and average time 44 seconds.

The study was published in Science Translational Medicine. Lead author David Haggerty, who completed doctoral research in Hawkes's lab, founded Vine Medical Inc. in 2022 to commercialize the technology. The next step is to start clinical trials to verify the device's safety. Haggerty said he wants to 'democratize airway management,' turning an operation once reserved for advanced specialists into a skill that ordinary emergency responders can perform after brief training.