Archive for the 'Technologies' Category

The idea of Wearable Antennas is around for some time but I have never seen someone actually developing or even producing this type of antenna, that is until today.

On my restless search for Wearable Electronic news I found a press release from Pharad, founded in 2003 to develop innovative and wearable antenna technology primarily for government and commercial customers.

Five years later Pharad announces the commercial availability of their Wearable Antennas.

Originally developed for the military and public safety/first responder markets, the wearable antennas feature small size, flexibility and enhanced electromagnetic performance, all in a waterproof textile package.

To give designer flexibility on the integration of a wearable antennas into clothing, Pharad offers the antenna as a module allowing the free placement of the wearable antenna in the garment.

Unlike other antenna solutions, Pharad’s wearable antennas are purpose designed and optimized to be worn on the body. They can be integrated into a variety of clothing and outer wear for the consumer market as well.

Pharad’s state-of-the-art, thin flexible material called Flextenna® has proven their benefits in the military and first responder area but will have great value in the consumer market like outdoor garments used in remote areas where cellphone reception is limited, allowing the ‘extra mile’ on signal boost.

Besides the wearable antenna module for GSM Quad band cellular phones many other wireless communication frequency range modules are available up to UWB (Ultra Wide Band) the next big thing in portable connectivity.

Even in the city a juiced up reception from a wearable antenna in a shirt, jacket or bag will ensure an always-on digital lifestyle experience in the occasional blind GSM or GPS spot between the skyscrapers.

For the commercialization of the wearable antenna Pharad formed in 2007 the Octane brand under which derivative products can be sold as standard commercial-off-the-shelf products.

Doesn’t mean off-the-shelf for you and me but for clothing and bag brands who can integrate the wearable antenna in their products, giving us the choice to buy and use it.

There is plenty of space on clothing and bags that could be used for additional wireless signal reception and stronger signals means less battery train of our cellphones.

[source: PR-inside]

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The Soundtrack T-Shirt started out as an April Fool’s day joke but will become reality thanks to the power of the Consumer voice.

Point in case: on April 1st we (and many other blogs) posted about the Soundtrack T-Shirt from ThinkGeek which  was ‘created’ as an April Fool’s day joke. An attempt to order it ended on a page saying what it was: 1st of April, sorry we don’t ship this item.

But things changed over at ThinkGeek as they where overwhelmed with requests from all over the Internet so they decided it’s time to make the Soundtrack T-Shirt for real.

Here is the text from ThinkGeeks Website regarding the Soundtrack T-Shirt:
Important Note - Due to overwhelming popular demand we’re turning this April Fool’s product into a real product and it might take a little while.

It seems a lot of people are exited about having a personal sound track while walking through life.

We will keep an eye on ThinkGeek and report back once they start shipping or you sign up for an email notification on their site to be the first to have it.

This example shows the power of the consumer voice - without the huge response ThinkGeek might just have filed this idea as April Fool’s day joke.

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Looking forward to long days with lot of sunshine made me check out what’s up in the research kitchen regarding wearable solar technology, speak flexible and hopefully lower cost solar panels.

My most promising find: Konarka, one of the hot favorites in the field of wearable solar power working on Power Plastic® that converts light to energy. This simple yet powerful mission of Konarka moved them to the forefront not only in research and development but very close to actual manufacturing of the first Power Plastic® materials.

The advantages of Power Plastic® will be: inexpensive, lightweight and flexible - just the stuff needed to be build power into Wearable Electronic products enabling them to have their own low cost embedded sources of renewable energy.

In a recent press release Konarka announced a first-ever demonstration of Inkjet Printed Solar Cells.

‘Demonstrating the use of Inkjet printing technology as a fabrication tool for highly efficient solar cells and sensors with small area requirements is a major milestone,’ commented Rick Hess, president and CEO at Konarka.

How does it work? Inkjet printing is a commonly used technique for controlled deposition of solutions of functional materials in specific locations on a substrate and can provide easy and fast deposition of polymer films over a large area. That’s scientist language explaining the function of an good old Inkjet printer I am sure most of our reader know and have connected to the computer.

This demonstration from Konarka confirms that organic solar cells can be processed with printing technologies with little or no loss compared to ‘clean room’ semiconductor technologies such as spin coating.

The advantage of this solar cell printing technology is the simpler and cheaper manufacturing setup required and the possibility to print solar cells on different materials like plastic and potentially on fabrics.

It is not expected to create high power solar cells in this way but powerful enough to collect light supplying products like sensors that have lower power requirements.

When will Power Plastic® become available for use? No clear signal yet out of Konarka but this will also depend on how ‘hot’ the interest from the market will be to use the Power Plastic® in commercial products.

If the solar bag trend that started last year continuous or becomes even hotter = bigger this year, Power Plastic® might be put on the fast track to commercialization.

Wherever there is light there will be (soon) power in your clothing and bags.

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For a seamless integration of electronic into clothing solutions have to be found that conform with the surrounding material, in the case of Wearable Electronic this means with textiles.

Most textiles are stretchable, at least to a certain extend. If the textiles would not stretch the wearing comfort would be very limited. The clothing will not follow our bodies movement and look stiff if not limiting our movement at all.

Bendable electronics can be found as commercial products but they represent only a first step into the ‘right’ direction. Bendable electronic can follow curves like but do not follow properly the movement of clothing which requires often a certain degree of stretching of the material.

A recently published work by a group of Scientist at the University of Illinois promises flexible silicon and plastic circuits that can potentially be used for integration into clothing. This technology might open the doors for new Wearable Electronic (and other) applications that have not been possible without it.

Making electronic substrates thin makes it bendable, just as a piece of paper is bendable whereas a piece of wood is not,” says John Rogers who is heading the team.

To make elastic circuits, the team binds the silicon wiring to a thin sheet of rubbery plastic that has been stretched out to be approximately 15% wider and longer than it was before.

After applying the silicon circuit to the stretched material it is released and the rubber like material shrinks back to it’s original shape. The circuit forms a wave shape profile (see photo above).

According to the Scientists the performance of the circuit is completely unaffected by this process and in this way produced circuits can be stretched up to the 15%.

For a seamless integration of electronic into clothing it is essential that ‘conventional’ electronic needs to be bendable AND stretchable otherwise the integration would be to cumbersome and rejected by the wearer.

This new development will certainly enrich the ‘tool box’ of future Wearable Electronic Fashion designer and e-Textile engineers.

[source: NewScientist]

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Industrial design student Joonas Saaranen added his view on the 21st Century boom box by creating the Reppo II backpack with a pair of full-range speakers and an amplifier.

Unlike the growing number of sound backpacks we have covered so far, the Reppo II is a urban hardshell backpack with conventional speakers as compared to the more softer speaker technology provided by NXT.

Nevertheless, the sound quality of the Reppo II should be better and more powerful than the soft panel speaker with NXT technology but one has to make a choice between softness and a lighter backpack versus more sound power and a heavier hard-shell backpack.

Saaranen has no plan yet to commercialize the Reppo II concept so we do not need to make that choice any time soon between soft or hard, the Reppo II is a one off prototype based on his vision and a small scale focus group testing.

Hard-shell backpacks are not new and have their fans. Adding a power sound function is not as far fetched as it might sound but … we like the soft, more flexible type of technology integrated into bags and clothing.

[Joonas Saaranen via technabob]

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Researchers at INL (Idaho National Laboratory), along with partners at Microcontinuum Inc. (Cambridge, MA) and Patrick Pinhero from the University of Missouri, are developing a way to collect energy from the sun with a technology that could potentially cost pennies a yard, be imprinted on flexible materials and still draw energy after the sun has set.

That’s a long and bold statement but how could this become reality?

Tiny nano-antenna array capable of collecting power by pick up infrared radiation not only from the sun when it radiates down during the day but also from the Earth when it radiates back up after dark.

The best performing solar cells today usually transform less that 40% of the usable energy into electricity. Flexible solar cells have half of this efficiency.

INL’s discovery could push this efficiency up to 80 percent if they can transfer this idea into mass-production.

Another advantage of this new technology is the cost: commercial solar cells are made of silicon and doped with exotic elements to boost its efficiency. The supply of processed silicon is lagging and they only get more expensive as demand increases.

The new approach uses a special manufacturing process to stamp tiny square spirals of conducting metal onto a sheet of plastic. This process makes it potentially cheaper and mass produceable on a roll to roll basis.

INL’s discovery could push this efficiency up to 80 percent if they can transfer this idea into mass-production.

As the well informed reader of talk2myShirt knows, Solar Fashion is becoming the next big thing in fashion and having a continuos power supply for Smart clothing will make them run day and night.

A brilliant, out of this world technology that will one day make our power T-Shirt work - day and night

source: INL

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Textronics Inc. the innovator and creator of the NuMetrex fitness apparel collection is giving the term ‘Smart Textiles’ and Heart rate monitoring for training, fitness and health care a complete new meaning.

Textronics has been recently awarded a patent for its textile-based electrode system by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.

The patent is for stretchy textile electrodes that can be incorporated into wearable garments to comfortably monitor the wearer’s heart rate, ECG or other electrical activity of the body.

Almost at the same time Textronics received the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) clearance to market its textile-based ECG Electrode for use in general electrocardiograph monitoring and recording procedures.

That’s in layman’s term the confirmation of the almighty FDA that Textronics sweetly soft, stretchy and comfortable smart textile sensor is not just picking up some signals, it is a high quality and accurate sensor for ECG measurements.

The FDA approval opens the door for Textronics to enter with it’s textile electrode technology the health care market, where advances in technology enable people to monitor their biofeedback from the comfort of their own homes.

This recent announcements establish Textronics and its NuMetrex range of heart rate monitoring fitness apparel as the clear leader in this market.

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How convenient would it be if your gadgets like cell phone and MP3 player would get their charge from your clothing. Never forget to charge them over night just drop them in the pocket head off to the office, school or wherever and they will be re-charged.

A team of U.S. scientists think we are within reach of power clothing. They have developed a microfiber fabric that generates its own electricity, making enough current to recharge a cell phone or ensure that a small MP3 music player never runs out of power.

The February 14 issue of the journal Nature details how pairs of textile fibers covered with zinc oxide nanowires can generate electrical current using the piezoelectric effect. Combining current flow from many fiber pairs woven into a shirt or jacket could allow the wearer’s body movement to power a range of portable electronic devices. The fibers could also be woven into curtains, tents or other structures to capture energy from wind motion, sound vibration or other mechanical energy.

“The fiber-based nanogenerator would be a simple and economical way to harvest energy from physical movement,” said Zhong Lin Wang, a Regents professor in the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. “If we can combine many of these fibers in double or triple layers in clothing, we could provide a flexible, foldable and wearable power source that, for example, would allow people to generate their own electrical current while walking.”

The nanogenerators developed by Wang’s research group take advantage of the unique coupled piezoelectric and semiconducting properties of zinc oxide nanostructures, which produce small electrical charges when they are flexed.

So far, the researchers have measured current of about four nanoamperes and output voltage of about four millivolts from a nanogenerator that included two fibers that were each one centimeter long. Not much yet but with a more improved design, Wang estimates that a square meter of fabric made from the special fibers could theoretically generate as much as 80 milliwatts of power, enough for cell phones and iPod nano – no bun indented.

As a next step, the researchers want to combine multiple fiber pairs to increase the current and voltage levels. They also plan to improve conductance of their fibers.

However, one significant challenge lies head for the power shirt – washing it. Zinc oxide is sensitive to moisture, so in real shirts or jackets, the nanowires would have to be protected from the effects of the washing machine, Wang noted.

That might be a show stopper for the moment but I am sure this can be solved by this team as well. This concept is just too cool to let it go now.

That is the second announcement in just a few days regarding Wearable Power: The Microfiber Fabric and the Electricity - generating knee brace.

[source: Georgia Tech via Science News]

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