1,994 research outputs found
Smart nanotextiles: materials and their application
Textiles are ubiquitous to us, enveloping our skin and
surroundings. Not only do they provide a protective
shield or act as a comforting cocoon but they also
serve esthetic appeal and cultural importance. Recent
technologies have allowed the traditional functionality
of textiles to be extended. Advances in materials
science have added intelligence to textiles and created
‘smart’ clothes.
Smart textiles can sense and react to environmental
conditions or stimuli, e.g., from mechanical, thermal,
chemical, electrical, or magnetic sources (Lam Po
Tang and Stylios 2006). Such textiles find uses in many
applications ranging from military and security to
personalized healthcare, hygiene, and entertainment.
Smart textiles may be termed ‘‘passive’’ or ‘‘active.’’ A
passive smart textile monitors the wearer’s physiology
or the environment, e.g., a shirt with in-built
thermistors to log body temperature over time. If
actuators are integrated, the textile becomes an active,
smart textile as it may respond to a particular stimulus,
e.g., the temperature-aware shirt may automatically
roll up the sleeves when body temperature rises.
The fundamental components in any smart textile
are sensors and actuators. Interconnections, power
supply, and a control unit are also needed to complete
the system. All these components must be integrated
into textiles while still retaining the usual
tactile, flexible, and comfortable properties that we
expect from a textile. Adding new functionalities to
textiles while still maintaining the look and feel of the
fabric is where nanotechnology has a huge impact on
the textile industry. This article describes current developments
in materials for smart nanotextiles and
some of the many applications where these innovative
textiles are of great benefit
BIOTEX-biosensing textiles for personalised healthcare management.
Textile-based sensors offer an unobtrusive method of continually monitoring physiological parameters during daily activities. Chemical analysis of body fluids, noninvasively, is a novel and exciting area of personalized wearable healthcare systems. BIOTEX was an EU-funded project that aimed to develop textile sensors to measure physiological parameters and the chemical composition of body fluids, with a particular interest in sweat. A wearable sensing system has been developed that integrates a textile-based fluid handling system for sample collection and transport with a number of sensors including sodium, conductivity, and pH sensors. Sensors for sweat rate, ECG, respiration, and blood oxygenation were also developed. For the first time, it has been possible to monitor a number of physiological parameters together with sweat composition in real time. This has been carried out via a network of wearable sensors distributed around the body of a subject user. This has huge implications for the field of sports and human performance and opens a whole new field of research in the clinical setting
Fit for purpose? Pattern cutting and seams in wearables development
This paper describes how a group of practitioners and researchers are working across disciplines at Nottingham Trent University in the area of Technical Textiles. It introduces strands of ongoing enquiry centred around the development and application of stretch sensors on the body, focusing on how textile and fashion knowledge are being reflexively revealed in the collaborative development of seamful wearable concepts, and on the tensions between design philosophies as revealed by definitions of purpose. We discuss the current research direction of the Aeolia project, which seeks to exploit the literal gaps found in pattern cutting for fitted stretch garments towards experiential forms and potential interactions. Normative goals of fitness for purpose and seamlessness are interrogated and the potential for more integrated design processes, which may at first appear ‘upside down’, is discussed
Bio-sensing textile based patch with integrated optical detection system for sweat monitoring
Sensors, which can be integrated into clothing and used to measure biochemical changes in body fluids,
such as sweat, constitute a major advancement in the area of wearable sensors. Initial applications for
such technology exist in personal health and sports performance monitoring. However, sample collection
is a complicated matter as analysis must be done in real-time in order to obtain a useful examination
of its composition. This work outlines the development of a textile-based fluid handling platform which
uses a passive pump to gather sweat and move it through a pre-defined channel for analysis. The system
is tested both in vitro and in vivo. In addition, a pH sensor, which depends on the use of a pH sensitive dye
and paired emitter-detector LEDs to measure colour changes, has been developed. In vitro and on-body
trials have shown that the sensor has the potential to record real-time variations in sweat during exercise
The future design direction of smart clothing development
Literature indicates that Smart Clothing applications, the next generation of clothing and
electronic products, have been struggling to enter the mass market because the consumers’
latent needs have not been recognised. Moreover, the design direction of Smart Clothes
remains unclear and unfocused. Nevertheless, a clear design direction is necessary for all
product development. Therefore, this research aims to identify the design directions of the
emerging Smart Clothes industry by conducting a questionnaire survey and focus groups
with its major design contributors. The results reveal that the current strategy of embedding
a wide range of electronic functions in a garment is not suitable. This is primarily because it
does not match the users’ requirements, purchasing criteria and lifestyle. The results
highlight the respondents’ preference for personal healthcare and sportswear applications
that suit their lifestyle, are aesthetically attractive, and provide a practical function
Wearable flexible lightweight modular RFID tag with integrated energy harvester
A novel wearable radio frequency identification (RFID) tag with sensing, processing, and decision-taking capability is presented for operation in the 2.45-GHz RFID superhigh frequency (SHF) band. The tag is powered by an integrated light harvester, with a flexible battery serving as an energy buffer. The proposed active tag features excellent wearability, very high read range, enhanced functionality, flexible interfacing with diverse low-power sensors, and extended system autonomy through an innovative holistic microwave system design paradigm that takes antenna design into consideration from the very early stages. Specifically, a dedicated textile shorted circular patch antenna with monopolar radiation pattern is designed and optimized for highly efficient and stable operation within the frequency band of operation. In this process, the textile antenna's functionality is augmented by reusing its surface as an integration platform for light-energy-harvesting, sensing, processing, and transceiver hardware, without sacrificing antenna performance or the wearer's comfort. The RFID tag is validated by measuring its stand-alone and on-body characteristics in free-space conditions. Moreover, measurements in a real-world scenario demonstrate an indoor read range up to 23 m in nonline-of-sight indoor propagation conditions, enabling interrogation by a reader situated in another room. In addition, the RFID platform only consumes 168.3 mu W, when sensing and processing are performed every 60 s
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