Wearable Power, the seamless, unobtrusive integration of electrical power storage or generation into woven structures – speak fabrics – is a highly active area in wearable tech research and development.

A team of scientists at the Polytechnic School of Montreal, Canada led by Maksim Skorobogatiy has joined the race for wearable power with a highly promising technology that might be able to get a good electrical charge into our smart wardrobe sooner than many might have expected.

The team came up with a type of Li-Ion battery chemistry which is not based on the usual liquid electrolytes but made of solid thermoplastic sheets of lithium iron phosphate cathodes, lithium titanium anodes sandwiched between solid polyethylene oxide electrodes.

Strips cut from the sheet are woven into fabrics, integrating a electrical power storage capability into textiles. The battery strips have the consistency and feel of leather which can make it useful for certain types of fabrics to blend into them seamlessly.

One hurdle the team has still to work out is to make this battery thread/strip water proof so it can be used for fabrics exposed to the elements.

More details about this revolutionary wearable power development can be found under this link (pdf document).

The woven battery of Maksim Skorobogatiy’s team is the most exiting wearable power development I have seen for a long time because of two noticeable features: for one, it is not requiring liquids which are highly susceptible of leaking, especially when incorporated into soft, flexible structures such as fabrics. Secondly, judging on the build process of this battery stripes, it looks fairly simple to fabricate and to feed into a weaving process.

Realistically maybe not yet ready for fabrics used to make garments but certainly for powered messenger bags, backpacks and fashion bags to keep the smart devices charged up longer with smart and powerful fabrics.

[via New Scientist]

Researcher at the Australian National University developed what seems a new generation of thin, flexible solar panels called SLIVER Cell.

The SLIVER cells are not thicker than a sheet of paper of human hair, making them extremely light weight and flexible. For me the most interesting development is the ‘bifacial’ design meaning these wearable solar panels re able to catch and convert sun light on both sides of the sheet.

Potentially this means greater degree of energy efficiency when used in conjunction with wearable objects which move, bend and change shape with the body movement.

According to the project’s Chief Investigator Professor Andrew Blakers ‘SLIVER cells have enabled the construction of efficient, rugged, flexible and light weight portable modules that convert light directly into electricity under a wide range of environmental conditions.’

The SLIVER cell wearable solar panel project was mainly funded by the Department of Defense – hence the demonstration of wearable solar panels and their potential usefulness for soldiers. Even if it turns out the SLIVER cell technology is not up to the rough conditions in a battle field, for the street worrier it will be a great battery relief for the gadgets in the pocket.

[source: ANU]

On a fairly regular bases news out of research around solar power by making solar cells more efficient, less expensive and preferable let them attach or print onto any surface pop up in the news.

Especially around the sunny summer time such news gain weight as anyone hanging out under the sun these days can easily imagine how much energy the sun is sending down to us earthlings.

So what is the expectation on the latest solar power research coming from MIT?

MIT’s researcher have been able to use a simple printing technique similar to the one used to print ‘silver lining in your bag of potato chips‘ to fabricate photovoltaic cells on cheap, flexible and lightweight substrates such as paper and potentially fabrics.

Forming a functional solar cell, multiple layers of ink have to be printed on cheaper, flexible and lighter  substrates than the glass of conventional solar cells. Attach wires to the printed cells and the sun’s power is ready for our gadgets – though – the efficiency of this type of printed solar cell is around 1% right now. There has to go much more (re)search into this technique before anyone could consider to power even a nano Pod with it.

The advantage would be of course obvious: light weight, potentially really cheaply to make and able to be used on none conformable surfaces such as the human body.

Oh well – wearable power is still high up in the sky for now but initiatives like this, pushing the boundary of the imaginable will one day deliver a highly efficient, reasonable costing wearable power solution.

[via: Fast Company]

Getting an unlimited stream of power for smart pocket devices while on the go is on top of the wish-list of billions, regardless where one lives, in the urban jungle or in the forest jungle.

Wearable power, how to make good electrical use of all the kinetic energy people generate as by-product while going, running and jumping around all day is the focus point of research and experimentation.

Joining this growing line of people to crack the mobile power challenge is Argentine designer Soledad Martin who envisions a nano-generator system in form of small bot attached to any kind of sports shoe.

The nano-generator uses the (kinetic) energy produced by the foot’s movement, converts this kinetic energy into electrical energy and stores it in a small battery, ready for charging cellphones or any USB connector ready device while your feet are resting.

The bot contains the kinetic transformer, battery and USB socket and is attached via interchangeable straps with snap buttons to the shoe. Different styles of this straps makes it possible for the power bot strap to blend into the shoes design.

A very smart idea, simple and I might say even practical to realize. Check out the complete set of photos on Design Buzz

A group of students at the Aalborg University in Denmark won the ‘Future Textiles International Prize Competition 2011′ for their design of a fabric capable to charge any mobile device by just placing the device on that futuristic textile.

Called Powertex, industrial design students Hans Christian Thiesen, Mads Gydegaard, Morten Ydefeldt and Marius Koppang aim to find a solution to one of the biggest hassles of our days: flat batteries when on the go and zillions of different adapters for each device we own.

The solution: a textile that can be used as table cloth, in upholstery of furniture on public transport like busses, trains and planes. Envision you ride the buss and place your cell phone on the seat cover and give it a quick recharge while riding to your office.

What is the secret ingredient of Powertex? the charging is done wireless via induction. Inductive charging is actually a old technology, as far as I can remember seeing it first in electrical tooth brushes. A wire coil generates a magnetic field that is picked up by the receiving end and transformed back into electrical current.

Over the past few years various companies started to develop and commercialize inductive charging pads, a two dimensional variant of the original transforming the three dimensional coil into a two dimensional spiral shape.

Powertex is pushing again the limits and suggest to integrate the inductive power generation into fabrics, fabrics that are around us almost each minute of the days, integrating mobile device charging really seamlessly into our life habits.

Watch the short video below and listen to the complete story of the Powertex innovators:

A brilliant idea that needs now some heavy lifting on the technology side to transfer it from a concept idea to reality.

[via: Innovation in Textiles]

The hot contested wearable power sector looks like to get a massive power boost with the Power Flex, a piezoelectric nano wire generator developed by Professor Zhong Lin Wang, director of the Center for Nanostructure Characterization at Georgia Tech.

Last time we posted about Professor Zhong Lin Wang’s wearable power research, he worked on nano technology enhanced piezo fibers which one day can turn our clothing into electrical power generators by harvesting our body movements.

Converting mechanical forces like stretch or pressure via Piezo electric materials into electrical power is a long standing technology but the efficiency of these Piezo electric devices generate only a very tiny amount of electricity, barley enough for low power sensors.

Professor Wang’s latest development, embedding tiny piezoelectric nanowires in flexible materials made it possible to fabricate nanowire-based generators that can harvest sufficient mechanical energy to power small devices, including light-emitting diodes and a liquid-crystal display.

This development represents a powerful breakthrough for wearable power generating materials, indicating that soon there we could see materials capable to generate enough power for devices like personal audio player or cell phones to be charged from nothing else than our clothing.

[source: Technology Review via Dvice]

Next to interactive gloves, wearable power is coming into the news on a regular, frequent basis. The latest news I picked up is based on research work at the University of Southampton where scientists aim to generate energy through people’s movement.

In theory human motion generates an estimated 67 watts of energy with each step. This is a lot which easily can supply power to run a notebook or any of the other indispensable electronic pocket devices we carry around.

The challenge is how to collect and transform this power of our body into electrical energy and feed it to our gadgets while we move through our days.

The scientists think the solution is by applying rapid printing processes and active printed inks to create an energy harvesting film on textiles.

‘This project looks at generating electrical power from the way people move and then applying an energy harvesting film to the clothes they wear or the materials they have around them,’ says Dr Steve Beeby, head of the research team. ‘We will generate useful levels of power which will be harvested through the films in the textiles. The two big challenges in smart textiles are supplying power and surviving washing.’

The research into the Microflex project, , a Framework 7 European Union funded project, is set to start in October and runs until 2015.

At the end the project will provide a toolbox of materials and processes suitable for a range of different fabrics that will enable users to develop the energy harvesting fabric best suited to their requirements.

We will keep our eyes clued on this project as we do watch out about other wearable power initiatives. Mostly long term projects but one never looses the hope to get the break through one day soon. Wearable power is a much needed element when it comes to make smart clothing.

(source: Science Daily via Ecouterre]

Professor Chongwu Zhou and his team of researcher at the University of Southern California produced flexible transparent carbon atom films that have great potential for a new breed of solar cells suitable to be integrated into garments.

Graphene OPV (organic photovoltaics) has been on the research agenda for a couple of years as means to transport electronics from hard substrate PCB (Printed Circuit Board) to soft, flexible substrates suitable to be wrapped around curved surfaces or even in clothing.

Professor Zhou’s lab reported the large scale production of graphene films by chemical vapor deposition three years ago. In this process, the USC engineering team creates ultra thin graphene sheets by first depositing carbon atoms in the form of graphene films on a nickel plate from methane gas.

These OPV films convert solar radiation to electricity, but not as efficiently as silicon cells like in rigid or the flexible solar cells commercially available today.

The power provided by sunlight on a sunny day is about 1000 watts per square meter. ‘For every 1000 watts of sunlight that hits a one square meter area of the standard silicon solar cell, 14 watts of electricity will be generated,’ says Lewis Gomez De Arco, a doctoral student and a member of the team that built the graphene OPVs.

Organic solar cells are less efficient; their conversion rate for that same one thousand watts of sunlight in the graphene-based solar cell would be only 1.3 watts. It is not as bad as this numbers suggest. Assuming this technology can be further developed into volume production with reasonable low costs, large areas could be covered with OPV films which are not suitable for rigid, planar surfaces.

OPV solar cell technology is yet another promising step into wearable power technologies of the future but as most of these developments at research stage, it will take a (very) long time until one of these hot technologies will make it into the commercial consumer market.

[source: Eurekalert via Printed Electronics World]

Innovators keep on searching restlessly for ways to use the huge amount of energy we are generating while going after our daily business.

Especially while walking a great amount of energy is generated with each step we take, a fascinating but technically very challenging wearable power area many have tried to explore.

A recently news release by the Louisiana Tech University is talking about a power shoe developed by Dr. Ville Kaajakari, assistant professor of electrical engineering at the Louisiana Tech University.

The technology Dr. Ville Kaajakari developed is based on new voltage regulation circuits which are capable to efficiently convert a piezoelectric charge into usable voltage.

Piezoelectric material usually generates very low voltage and current which is one of the reason that this technology is a bit stuck when it comes to ‘sensible’ applications.

Dr. Ville Kaajakari’s invention uses a low-cost polymer transducer that has metalized surfaces for electrical contact making it highly suitable for the use in shoes or clothing as the polymer-based generator is soft and robust unlike conventional ceramic transducers which are stiff and brittle.

What would be a ‘sensible’ use of power generated with and inside a shoe? First comes to my mind running sensors like the Nike+ or simple step counter, sensors that do not need huge amount of electricity.

If the power generating efficiency turns out to be high enough to power RF transponders or even GPS receivers we could have trackable shoes, maybe interesting for expeditions into the unknown, military or having our running shoes recording the off-the-trail run.

News about wearable power become a regular weekly topic on talk2myshirt as we have again found information of a new development in this field.

Britain’s Ministry of Defense awarded a research grant to Intelligent Textiles Limited, a British company specializing in wearable technology, to develop power fabrics that can power radios and other combat equipment soldiers carry around in the field. I met this people last year during the Avantex in Germany and I must say they are doping highly interesting developments, mainly around military applications.

The power generating and storing fabrics under development should be able to serve as an alternative to batteries and to reduce a soldiers load of equipment in the field.

All the battery powered devices in a battle field not only add weight to be carried around but also become a logistical nightmare. They have to be shipped to the front lines, lugged around wherever the soldiers are and need to ba on hand when needed in the action.

This research funding is certainly something to watch out as many of the first innovative and later mainstream technologies started out very often as an initiative based on military needs and funding.

I am still very hopeful to see consumer version of power clothing within the next 5-10 years.

[source: FastCompany via GizmoWatch]