Clothing That Dresses Itself: KAIST and Stanford Build Robotic Garments With Air-Powered Vines

Getting dressed is one of the first things we learn and the last thing we lose the ability to do. For elderly adults, people with disabilities, and workers who must don protective gear dozens of times a day, the simple act of putting on clothes can become a slow, painful, or impossible task. A team of researchers from South Korea's KAIST and Stanford University has now built a garment that solves this problem — not with an external robot arm, but with soft, air-powered vines sewn directly into the fabric itself.

How Vines Dress a Person

The mechanism is deceptively simple. Thin, flexible tubes — called vine robots — are embedded in the clothing and connected to a small air pump. When pressurized, the tubes extend and guide the fabric along the wearer's body, turning the clothing inside out as they advance. The process takes roughly ten seconds for a full suit. The wearer does not even need to stand still.

"The vine robot stays close to the person and dresses them by turning the clothing inside out as it moves, allowing it to climb stably along the shape of the body," said Kim Nam Gyun, a postdoctoral researcher at KAIST and lead author of the paper published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters.

Inspired by Ivy and a Rainy Bike Ride

The idea came from a mundane frustration. "When I was riding a bicycle, it started to rain — and I thought it would be helpful if a raincoat could be put on automatically," Kim said. Instead of building a rigid robotic arm with complex control software that requires the user to freeze in place, the team looked to biology. Ivy does not shuffle its whole body forward; it extends at the tip. The vine robot does the same, which is why it handles curves, narrow gaps, and irregular body shapes without falling apart.

Ryu Jee-Hwan, a professor at KAIST, explained: "It can pass through narrow gaps, grow while adapting to the shape of its surrounding environment, and move regardless of whether the surface is slippery, sticky, or sloped."

Where It Could Actually Get Used

The obvious first application is assistive care for older adults and people with reduced mobility. But the research team sees an industrial case arriving sooner. Semiconductor cleanroom staff must climb into protective suits multiple times per shift. Firefighters and medical crews often dress under extreme time pressure with their hands already occupied.

The paper, titled "Self-Wearing Adaptive Garments via Soft Robotic Unfurling," was selected as one of only five winners from more than 1,700 papers published in IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters during 2025 — a sign that the robotics community recognizes the significance of a machine that can finally dress a person, not just pick up a box.