What can smart textiles do for our health and safety?

When it comes to smart textiles, people may think more about the convenience of "music jackets", cool stage performances, professional sports wearables... In fact, in addition to these applications that make people's lives "cooler" Smart textiles can also contribute to people's health and safety. For example, for the special needs of mentally retarded, disabled, elderly, and children, we develop intelligence with positioning, track record, physiological status monitoring display, wireless transmission, assist, question and answer. / Functional textiles, which can guarantee the personal safety of special people or bring convenience to life.

Navigation and anti-lost for the blind

Bahadir and others designed a smart navigation T-shirt for the visually impaired. This soft and comfortable smart T-shirt is woven with PA66 and elastic yarn. Its intelligent navigation system builds the circuit of integrated electronic components by embedding silver-plated yarn. Based on this, one microcontroller, four ultrasonic sensors, eight vibration motors, and two power supplies are integrated.

Four ultrasonic sensors are used to detect obstacles, and the obstacle-avoidance control algorithm based on the neural fuzzy logic is programmed to calculate the distance, size and other information of the obstacles and the speed of the human motion. After the linguistic variables are processed by the microcontroller, Give left/right steering or small, medium, large and very large angle steering instructions to the vibrating motor. The smart navigation T-shirt has been tested to exhibit a stable sensed navigational effect, and the actuation steering signal can be transmitted to the vibration motor within 1 s and sensed by the user. In actual use, all integrated electronic components are detachable to wash the garment. The same concept can also be designed for the positioning and monitoring of people with disabilities and the elderly to prevent them from being lost.

Disease surveillance and prevention

Because some major diseases such as cancer have a long onset time, once the disease occurs, it may be fatal. If the possibility of disease is accurately detected in the early stage of the disease, the mortality rate of the disease can be greatly reduced. Smart textiles can provide simple and effective disease monitoring functions, such as Bio-temperature Change Sensor (CBRTM) underwear developed by First Warning Systems, a digital health company in the United States, which can detect early breast cancer by monitoring changes in tiny metabolic temperatures caused by cancer cells. And push the results of the data analysis to the user's mobile phone. According to reports, its monitoring function is even more accurate than the early detection methods used in medical treatment. The patient successfully detected breast disease in advance in the test.

The Bellyband Prenatal Monitor, developed by the ExCITe Center research team at Drexel University in Pennsylvania, monitors the baby's heart rate and stress levels in the womb and the mother's delivery information in real time, and wirelessly transmits the data to On the monitoring equipment, it is expected to reduce the tedious pregnancy check. These smart clothing concepts can also be used for physical health monitoring of the elderly, children, etc.

Outdoor sports safety protection

In terms of sports protection, the use of smart textiles can make sports gears more comfortable, light and reliable. Two students from Lund University in Sweden invented a bicycle "airbag helmet" called H?vding that can be integrated into clothing. Unlike traditional helmets, this type of helmet is made of lightweight, wear-resistant nylon. The helium inflator placed in the collar when inflated is immediately inflated, providing the rear, side and forehead protection of the head. It has a larger protective area than a conventional helmet and does not interfere with the wearer's line of sight. After the helmet is inflated, the pressure will remain for a few seconds to prevent multiple impacts during the accident and then slowly deflate.

The DeflexionTM fabric developed by the chemical company Dow Corning using shear thickening on warp-knitted fabrics not only ensures the high breathability required for sports fabrics, but also protects the wearer from high-energy impact damage. Multi-layer fabric construction also improves impact resistance. Currently, the impact fabric has been tested and tested in the Nordic professional sports brand Rukka's motorcycle/cycling suit and used in the Shockwave series of British outdoor brand Henri Lloyd. In addition, the product can also be used for impact protection of shoes, electronic products, and the like.

GradoZero Espace's Balaclava K-Cap, based on shape memory materials, provides intelligent protection for high-altitude climbers. The K-Cap consists of two layers of knitwear, the inner layer of which uses a shape memory material that can be adapted to the wearer's head and face contours when the temperature is lowered. The outer fabric is woven from two layers of high-elastic yarn. Allow and rotate with the wearer's head without affecting their line of sight. Grado Zero Espace also uses this shape memory material in its S1 sailing suits to adjust the permeability and breathability of the wearer based on the wearer's body heat and sweating. In addition, the garment also uses a shock absorbing pad and an electroluminescent film material made of viscoelastic polyurethane memory foam for special parts to provide impact protection and high visible protection in the dark.