Researchers from South Korea's KAIST and Stanford University have unveiled SWAG, a soft robotic garment that dresses its wearer in approximately 10 seconds without any manual assistance. The system embeds air-powered "vine robots" into clothing fabric; these pneumatically actuated tendrils climb the body like ivy by turning the garment inside out as they extend, gripping and pulling the clothing upward along the wearer's torso and limbs.
The technology is aimed primarily at elderly care and mobility-impaired populations, where independent dressing remains one of the most common daily challenges. The vine-robot approach avoids the rigid, arm-based assistive devices that have dominated previous robotic dressing research, instead distributing force softly across the body to reduce injury risk.
The work was published on July 17, 2026 via Reuters. [1]