One of the main challenges in developing smart textiles lies in making the sensors and electronics needed to power the tech as unobtrusive as possible.
One common solution is to make sensors in the form of a tag or attachment that is connected externally to the fabric.
This can certainly be useful in some applications, but now a team has come up with flexible electronic fibres that can actually be incorporated into the textiles.
These can detect a body’s movement underneath as well as other changes to the overall garment or textile.
Andreas Leber from the Laboratory of Photonic Materials and Fibre Devices (FIMAP) in EPFL’s School of Engineering said: ‘Imagine clothing or hospital bed sheets capable of monitoring your breathing and other vital movements, or textiles that allow technology to interact more safely and intuitively with humans.
‘The soft transmission lines that we’ve developed open the door to all of this.’
Most conventional sensors used for smart textiles are relatively fragile and can only detect a single kind of fabric deformation – such as stretch, pressure or torque – at a time.
A large number of sensors are also required to cover a large surface area of fabric, which often defeats the idea of a smart textile product in the first place.
The flexible fibres essentially turn a piece of fabric into one large sensor.
Fibres send out streams of electrical pulses
Leber explained that the new flexible sensor fibres work in a similar way to radar but use electrical pulses as opposed to electromagnetic waves.
He added that they also had similarities to transmission lines in high-frequency communications technology.
The system measured the gap between a signal being sent out and received and used the interval to work out the location, type and strength of any deformation in the material.
The researchers added that this kind of detection technology, which can be used to differentiate between different types of deformation, has never been used before in structures that combine high-performance electronics and extensive mechanical flexibility.
Constructing the flexible fibres themselves was described as a complex task using liquid metals and ‘unusual materials’ such as elastomers to create conductors.
The structure, which includes features on the micrometre scale, also has to be perfect in order to function correctly.
Today’s news was brought to you by TD SYNNEX – the UK’s number one solutions distributor.
