TEXTILES.ORG
Sometimes new products emerge from existing textile businesses, and sometimes textile businesses emerge from new product ideas. For example, the company HeroWear LLC, out of Nashville, Tenn., makes the Apex and SABER soft exosuits for workers and the military respectively, and their initial development happened in a Vanderbilt University lab.
Karl Zelik, Ph.D., an associate professor of engineering at the school, was inspired in 2015 by his young children “who were taking a toll on his back,” says Paul Nicholson, vice president of growth for HeroWear. “He challenged his students to develop a supportive device that was as ‘invisible as possible’ that could support his back while not getting in the way of day-to-day activities.”
Making the exosuit from textiles keeps it flexible so that workers can move naturally while wearing it; light (3 pounds); and adjustable, allowing it to fit people of all heights and body types. Textiles also allow it to be comfortable, which is key for wearer buy-in.
Field research of prototypes with warehouse workers provided unfiltered feedback that helped the team quickly identify issues, such as heat retention, and decide on features to keep, such as flexibility, comfort and sizing.
Good reception from workers spurred interest from large companies and military groups. “Our project developing an exosuit for the U.S. Army also happened between the Apex [the original design] and Apex 2,” Nicholson says. “They taught us a thing or two about durability! We incorporated those learnings into the Apex 2 as well.”
Developing the commercial product began after the project was spun off into the private company HeroWear. “We brought in experts in design for manufacturing and in working with factories that could help us scale quickly,” he said. “Bringing in experts who already knew how to tackle those problems was key.”
Some seed funding for the startup came from a program at the college called Discovery Vanderbilt, which launched in October 2022. Additional startup funding included Small Business Innovation and Research grants. The company licenses the patents developed at the school.
The product won the Safety Innovation Challenge, given by the National Safety Council in September.