Just before the Smart Textiles Salon, the University of Ghent in cooperation with Plug and Wear and Systex organize a two part, three day workshop on Intelligent Textiles.

Part I will equip the participant with fundamental theoretical knowledge and practical insights in the field of intelligent textiles. The practical workshop, STS ToolTime, by Riccardo Marchesi from Plug and Wear will teach how to apply the information obtained in the lecture of Prof. Lieva Van Langenhove, building the bridge between the theoretical part and the design application.

Part II will consolidate and deepen the knowledge gained in the first part. Besides stimulating the participant’s creativity, this workshop will inform the participant about existing prototypes and possible application areas of smart textiles.

During the interactive exhibition at the Smart Textiles Salon, the participant can see, touch and experience realized smart textiles in functioning prototypes.

The course is open to all persons involved or interested in the field of smart textiles. Besides research institutes, academia, industry or public institutions, capital investors as well as designers are welcome.

Check out the Intelligent Textiles workshop page for all details or download the workshop brochure in PDF format.

Staying a bit in the fiber since field today’s article is about a development coming from Jian Feng Gu at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in China.

Mr. Jian Feng Gu and his team work on a simple rolled capacitor from a sheet of conducting polymer sandwiched between two insulating sheets of low density polyethylene.

They then roll this sandwich into a cylinder and encase it in high density polyethylene. next they heat it and then extrude it through a tiny hole to form a fiber with a diameter of less than a millimeter.

If the conditions are just right, the plastics all stretch in exactly the same way so that the internal structure of the fibre is a smaller version of the original.

The result would be a fiber that is soft and flexible and has a capacitance some 1000 times greater than an equivalent co-axial cable. With such super fiber, fabrics can be woven to make garments serving as electrical power storage, power collected from piezoelectric fibers or flexible solar panels integrated into such garments.

Research into advanced, technical textile fibers are the cornerstone of the future of smart clothing. Attaching electronic components as we see right now is a interesting, exploratory step towards the full integration of functionality into fibers, the building block of fabrics and at the end clothing in many different forms.

[source: Technology Review]

In the old days making fibers was a relative simple matter, creating yarn and weave them to clothes. But these days are numbered with the emergence of intelligent fibers and textiles.

Fiber development migrated in our digital age to electronic laboratories like MIT’s Research Lab of Electronics where Associate professor of Materials Science, Yoel Fink is working on fibers able to pick up sound and to act as speaker.

Yoel Fink and his collaborators announced in the August issue of Nature Materials the passing of a new milestone in their development: fibers that can detect and produce sound.

The magic element in the new acoustic fiber is a plastic commonly used in microphones, also known as piezoelectric microphone, which means that it changes shape when an electric field is applied to this plastic material.

In a fiber microphone, the drawing process would cause the usually used metal electrodes to lose their shape. So the researchers instead used a conducting plastic that contains graphite, the material found in pencil lead. When heated, the conducting plastic maintains a higher viscosity, yielding a thicker fluid than a metal would.

This sounds very interesting but keep in mind, it’s not as easy as it reads in this few lines and it will take some time to figure out a way to produce hearing and singing fabrics.

Nevertheless, possible applications are already on the radar for the research team, applications ranging from wearable microphones and biological sensors to large-area sonar imaging systems with ultra high resolution: A fabric woven from acoustic fibers would provide the equivalent of millions of tiny acoustic sensors.

Another sexy application would be to combine the textile microphone capabilities with color changing fabric technology. The result would be garments that react on surrounding acoustic by altering its colors in sync with natures sound.

[source: MITnews]

Intelligent textiles not only enable the design of fashionable, interactive outfits to show (off) but can add great value to the health care sector, an area I have repeatedly highlighted as one of the potential applications for wearable technologies.

Joseph Wang and his colleagues at the University of California San Diego, La Jolla, USA integrate by screen printing the sensors directly on the elastic waist band on underpants which allow the constant monitoring of blood pressure and heart rate around the wait area.

The sensors pick up the weak electrical signals generated each time of our heart pumps blood around the body. To get reliable detection of these weak signals the sensors have to be placed firmly against the skin.

The elastic band on underpants provide a secure, firm contact with the skin by using the ‘natural’ properties and function of these elastic bands without adding any discomfort.

Durability tests carried out revealed that the stresses associated with everyday wear, such as the folding or stretching of the clothing, did not affect the sensor performance.

In the pipeline is the development of enzyme sensors for ethanol and lactate that could be used to monitor alcohol levels in drivers or stress levels in soldiers or athletes.

Smart, Intelligent underwear for medical or performance monitoring purpose are the most sensible, most obvious applications for smart textiles. I just wonder why there is so little commercial activity around this area as this and many other research and development activities seem not that difficult to carry from the academic level to the production floor.

[source: Printed Electronic World]

Would you like being waked up by light coming out of the pillow, gently increasing it’s light intensity simulating the natural sunrise?

If you are tired being hit by an alarm clock that gives off a shocking noise you might want to swap your alarm clock with the glo Pillow.

The glo Pillow is the brain child of Ian Walton and teammate Eoin McNally, two inventive designer from Ireland.

Designed as an alternative to the traditional alarm clock to help combat the pressures of the ’24 hour’ lifestyle many of us are living today, the glo Pillow moves you over from sweet dream land to reality in a natural and more peaceful way.

The pillow uses an LED fabric substrate below the surface to wake the user with light. This LED fabric also functions as a display, showing the time on the pillows surface.

40 minutes before the pre-set alarm time the pillow begins to glow and gently brings the user out of sleep. This natural waking process helps to set the circadian rhythm or ‘body clock’ and results in more healthy sleep/wake patterns.

Although the glo Pillow is ‘just’ a design study it might be not too long to get it commercialized if companies pick this idea up.

LED fabric substrates are basically available in the form of Philips Lumalive, NYX Jacket display and other demonstrations we have see like the Jacket from Kanye West or the Jackets of Moritz Waldemeyer for OK Go.

The glo Pillow is a very innovative idea which has been recognized in Time Magazines ‘Best Inventions of 2007‘.

Anyone willing to pick up this idea and get it to the market? It would be a great relieve to everyone who hates that shocking alarm going off every morning killing the sweetest dreams.

A recent article by T3 introduces a highly interesting textile and clothing concept worked out by one of the most innovative and forward thinking design companies: Frog Design.

The textile and clothing concept in question can harvest the power everyone is creating with his/her clothing!

Yes, you will have experienced the electrical power in our clothing also called static. The easiest way to recognize this is when you touch a metal part like a door knob and a small spark jumps from your fingers to the door knob, giving you a slight shock and kills sometimes sensitive electronic devices.

This electrical energy is wasted at the moment but Frog Design vision is to collect this waste energy by weaving conductive filaments into fabric. Everyday clothing can so be transformed into power (generating) clothes that can provide power to portable gizmos in your pocket.

The potential of such fabric is huge. The only thing which still has to be figured out is how to weave the power fabric and how to get the power from the jacket or t-shirt to your iPod or iPhone.

Frog Design goes even further in their vision and proposes an even more revolutionary use of such power clothing: the power clothing can discharge its power at any time, creating a shell of electricity and forming a personal forcefield to keep you safe against unwanted close encounter.

The electrical forcefield has the power to stun an attacker, like a stun gun and with some intelligence included into the power fabric, it can even tell when you’re nervous, monitoring heart rate and anxiety levels so it automatically knows when to power-up its protection system.

One remark to this – the intelligence of the fabric must be very sensitive as well to differentiate between a nervous, heart-rate increasing first kiss or an attack from mean meaning people.

In any case, this is an excellent idea and the challenge is out now for the engineers and technologists to make it happen.

[via: T3]

Germany’s advanced e-Textiles company WarmX has the right product many of us are carving for right now: electrically heated underwear.

In times of the greatest need of a bit warmth, a flip of a switch is all it takes and in no time your body gets hugged by a waive of warmth.

There are many heated clothing products on the market which work well but most if not all of them are a bit bulky. WarmX products stand out with their seamless integration of the heating elements into fabrics without adding any bulk.

Conductive polyamide fibers are directly woven into the fabric which are then supplied with electricity by a small rechargeable battery. The knitted fabric warms directly on the skin – completely without heating wires!

In this way only a very small amount of electricity is needed compared to other heated clothing technologies that warm up layers of fabrics before reaching your skin.

The above pictured undershirt, available for men and women, has two warming zones placed around the kidneys. In the kidney region the body is highly temperature sensitive and the subjective feeling of ‘being warm’ is when the kidneys are warmed. Interestingly, feet and hands won’t cool down that fast, because the blood of the body runs through the kidneys and is warmed up there.

The WarmX undershirts are machine-washable (without mini power-controller). This mini power controller has 3 heating modes and the rechargeable battery lasts between 2.5 to 5.5 hours depending on your needs for warmth.

The cozy warm Undershirt set goes for $ 355.85 in the colors white, blue, dark green and black directly by WarmX

Smart and Intelligent fabric allow designers of sport bras to improve the wearing comfort for the active women according to a demonstration of an Australian research team from the University of Wollongong.

Fitted with tiny sensors, the fabric will monitor and measure even the smallest movement in the breast.

Two volunteers, aged 30 and 39, one wearing a 36D bra and the other a 38DD, were instructed to walk on a treadmill at 4.3mph and then speed up to a jog of 6.2mph.

The finding of this test: all the strain and stress from the breast movement, which can be as much as 2.7 inches during jogging, is being borne by the straps. This could explain the shoulder pain and tingling in the arms that many women suffer during physical activities. Done over prolonged time, these ill fitting bras could cause long-term nerve damage.

According to the UK’s Telegraph, as many as 80 per cent of women are estimated to be wearing the wrong bra, particularly during exercise and thus increasing the risk of pain and nerve damage caused by bra straps.

It was the first time a textile sensors for breast movement analysis was used rather than rigid parts that have been incorporated into bras to test the level of movement in the past.

Thanks to the development of intelligent fabrics, brassiere designers have now the ability to directly assess the effects on wearing comfort of each brassiere component.

Finally a use of intelligent fabrics which is not controlling the iPod

[via: StyleGuru]

IntertechPira‘s Smart and Intelligent Textiles Conference takes place coming Tuesday and Wednesday (Dec 11+12) in Prague.

This is the last event in 2007 about Wearable Electronic and Intelligent Textiles, enabling you to meet and network with experts as well as getting the latest insights from companies like The North Face, Navispace, The University of Reading, Finetex Technologies, BASF AG, Coatema AG to name a few.

Highly interesting will be the presentation from Angel Chang with her view of high fashion design and wearable technologies.

If you are around Prague this week or get a last minute ticket to Prague, the Smart and Intelligent Textiles Conference will be a interesting place – besides talk2myShirt – to be and catch up on the newest developments in the Smart and Intelligent Textiles business.

In case you haven’t heard of the last big event for Wearable Electronics in 2007: the Smart and Intelligent Textiles Conference held in conjunction with the Nanotextiles conference takes place in Prague between Dec. 10-12.

This 3 day event is organized by IntertechPira and brings together leading experts from fashion design, branding, research and manufacturing. More information about the conference can be found by follow this link.

A diverse mix of high profile speakers makes this conference the perfect meeting point, opening up opportunities to get the latest insights into Wearable Electronic and gives plenty of room for networking with the speaker and participants.

The Nanotextiles and Smart and Intelligent Textiles conference is just one month away and you might consider signing up to ensure a place in this high profile event.

We can offer you as special service in conjunction with IntertechPira a 15% discount on the conference fee if you quote ‘talk2myShirt’ during registration. It’s our Christmas gift to our dear readers.