Wearables with real-time vibration measurement protect against RSI
Leslah Garland 15 December 2021 
Coventry University graduates Andrei and Vlad Feraru have launched a company with a pioneering ambition to help protect engineers from a type of repetitive strain injury (RSI).
The Coventry University spin-out company, Feraru Dynamics, now has an international supply chain and has launched the first real-time proactive wearable technology to help people maintain resilience in the face of hazardous exposure to vibration, with the aim of preventing Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome (HAVS) in the workplace.
The seeds of Andrei’s entrepreneurial idea were sown during a placement with Rolls-Royce Aerospace, which he secured in the second year of his Mechanical Engineering degree course at Coventry University.
He said: “Rolls-Royce offered me a graduate position and a clear path to advance in what I considered a dream engineering career when I first came to Coventry. I learned a lot on my placement, and when I was visiting one of the manufacturing facilities, I observed processes that involved manual handling of vibrating equipment, which got me thinking about the causes and impact of Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome.
“It was clear to me right away that there was an opportunity for improvement and I spent the last few months of my placement researching and understanding HAVS. I proposed an improvement idea that involved prototyping a device that could measure human hand exposure to vibration in real time and I started my individual project in my final year at Coventry University. The project was receiving support from people at both Rolls-Royce and Coventry University. A lot of people were telling me this was a spin-out opportunity, so I asked my brother for support and together we thought out a business plan to rise to the challenge.’’
Andrei’s journey to securing a placement with the world-renowned Rolls-Royce and eventually setting up his own business started with a foundation degree at Coventry University College (CUC) in 2013, followed by his Mechanical Engineering degree at Coventry University.
