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Launching early next year, the PAST-A-BOT project explores new forms of interaction between humans, other species, machines, and the environment. The European Research Council has awarded professor Jaana Vapaavuori a five-year Consolidator Grant to lead the effort.

The researchers aim to create textile-based robots that can sense their surroundings, process information, and even change their shape or mechanical properties. In practice, these are soft, functional textile structures built from smart yarns capable of detecting sound, vibration, and the components of different materials. Their multisensory capabilities support an approach that emphasizes a sustainable, harmonious relationship with the environment – one that values ecological balance, recognizes the agency and rights of non-human species, and accounts for the diverse ways organisms communicate and perceive the world.

The project will also investigate forms of logical computation based on smart yarns that move in response to external signals. By combining different yarn technologies, the team can create switches capable of performing logical operations familiar from mathematics.

Technologies and future applications

A key research area in the project is customizable soft interfaces. In addition to new types of soft, shapeable robots, this work could pave the way for textile surfaces that sense sound and environmental changes, as well as advanced assistive garments that support users with mobility or dressing.

Sound plays a central role as a mode of interspecies communication. Despite its importance in ecosystems, sound has been understudied as a source of information. Plant communication, for example, is still poorly understood, notes professor Jaana Vapaavuori.

“In dry conditions, many plants – tomatoes, for example – produce high-frequency cavitation sounds that humans can’t hear. Insects that feed on plants can also be identified by their characteristic sound and vibration patterns. If we can develop technologies sensitive to the frequency ranges that matter within ecosystems, we can improve communication between humans and other species, and deepen our understanding of environmental conditions more broadly,” she explains.

Future applications may include soft wearable robots that monitor biochemical changes in the body and release medication precisely when needed. In agriculture, textile robots could respond to changes in a plant’s environment: shading crops during heat stress or deterring pests only when necessary, reducing the use of harmful pesticides. Textiles guided by non-human sound signals could also open new pathways for breaking down and recycling materials.

A new way of thinking about materials research

According to Vapaavuori, the project seeks to introduce a new mindset in materials science – one that does not focus solely on the present or immediate future. Materials research, she argues, should draw on forgotten or unfinished technologies from the past, consider the needs of the entire living environment – not only humans – and engage with long-term possibilities.

Although the project has many potential applications, Vapaavuori emphasizes that it is not driven only by current needs. Instead, the aim is to develop a multidisciplinary, flexible, and iterative framework that helps researchers look further ahead.

“I want to problematize the question of what kinds of ‘solutions’ we are actually looking for. Perhaps we need to reframe the question entirely, since we have no scientific evidence that today’s circumstances can be used to directly predict future needs,” Vapaavuori reflects.

“PAST-A-BOT — Past-aware material networks towards tomorrow’s textile robots” is funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant worth more than two million euros. The five-year project will begin in early 2026.

Professor Jaana Vapaavuori discusses her research  – watch the lecture: