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. 2014 Jul 7;14(7):11957-92.
doi: 10.3390/s140711957.

Wearable electronics and smart textiles: a critical review

Matteo Stoppa  1 , Alessandro Chiolerio  2
Affiliations

Wearable electronics and smart textiles: a critical review

Matteo Stoppa et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Electronic Textiles (e-textiles) are fabrics that feature electronics and interconnections woven into them, presenting physical flexibility and typical size that cannot be achieved with other existing electronic manufacturing techniques. Components and interconnections are intrinsic to the fabric and thus are less visible and not susceptible of becoming tangled or snagged by surrounding objects. E-textiles can also more easily adapt to fast changes in the computational and sensing requirements of any specific application, this one representing a useful feature for power management and context awareness. The vision behind wearable computing foresees future electronic systems to be an integral part of our everyday outfits. Such electronic devices have to meet special requirements concerning wearability. Wearable systems will be characterized by their ability to automatically recognize the activity and the behavioral status of their own user as well as of the situation around her/him, and to use this information to adjust the systems' configuration and functionality. This review focuses on recent advances in the field of Smart Textiles and pays particular attention to the materials and their manufacturing process. Each technique shows advantages and disadvantages and our aim is to highlight a possible trade-off between flexibility, ergonomics, low power consumption, integration and eventually autonomy.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Different kinds of textile/fabric manufacturing and treatment. (a) Embroidery; (b) sewing; (c) weaving; (d) non-woven; (e) knitting; (f) spinning; (g) breading; (h) coating/laminating; (i) printing and (j) chemical treatment.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
(a) Metal coated wire combined in iron tube; (b) Several diameter reductions of tube; (c) Bundling of tubes; (d) Leaching, realizing fibers.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Schematic of conductive fiber twisted with the normal fibers.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Yarn-based transistor.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
(a) Twisted metal wire: The metal wire is twisted around the polymer yarn; (b) Metal coating: The polymer yarn is physically/chemically coated with a thin metal layer; (c) Metal fibers: The conductive yarn consists of metal multifilaments [47].
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
(a) Standard design of copper yarn twisted with polyester fibers; (b) PETEX.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
Approach to integrate circuits in a fabric with wire grid.
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
(a) Musical Jacket comprising a fabric keypad on one side, a MIDI synthesizer on the other side, speakers behind speaker grills in the pockets and fabric buses visible inside the jacket; (b) The fabric keypad with the circuit board placed behind it.
Figure 9.
Figure 9.
Screen printing fabrication for conductive tracks.
Figure 10.
Figure 10.
Textile headband for facial EMG.
Figure 11.
Figure 11.
DataGlove™ VRLOGIC with flex sensors.
Figure 12.
Figure 12.
Scheme of sensor with an array of textile capacitors.
Figure 13.
Figure 13.
(a) Scheme of capacitor sensor developed by the U.S. Company Pressure Profile Systems, Inc. and (b) Design for Life Centre at Brunel University in Surrey.
Figure 14.
Figure 14.
(a) Scheme of electrochemical sensor for pH analysis and (b) the system application.
Figure 15.
Figure 15.
ILLUM jacket layout.
Figure 16.
Figure 16.
(a) Single-layered P-FCB system manufacturing process; (b) Implementation of multi-layer connection using eyelet.
Figure 17.
Figure 17.
(a) Notable measures of a horseshoe design: inner radius (R), joining angle (θ) and width of the metal track (w); (b) Horseshoe metal interconnects embedded into a Sylgard 186 PDMS matrix.
Figure 18.
Figure 18.
SEM image of the polypyrrole coated textile (Cpyrrole = 0.8 mg/mL), (a) 100 μm scale and (b) 10 μm scale.
Figure 19.
Figure 19.
Misalignment of the contact points.
Figure 20.
Figure 20.
SEM image of fabric with copper fiber (a) and PETEX (b).
Figure 21.
Figure 21.
Sheet resistance vs. printing passes.
Figure 22.
Figure 22.
(a) Creasing of the fabric with printed transmission lines; (b) DC resistance changes vs. number of creasing iterations.
Figure 23.
Figure 23.
Evolon impedence profile before five washes. The three lines show the comparison between different conductive inks (Dupont 5025, Dupont 5096, Creative Materials 112-15).
Figure 24.
Figure 24.
(a) Typical response of sensor to a given strain (sensor length 2 cm) waiting time 2 min; (b) waiting time 10 s.
Figure 25.
Figure 25.
Typical response of sensor to a given strain.
Figure 26.
Figure 26.
Hysteresis of a singular pressure electrode.
Figure 27.
Figure 27.
Wearable sweat sensors performance.
Figure 28.
Figure 28.
(a) Measurement result of the proposed via and conductive adhesive resistance; (b) Bandwidth of a P-FCB transmission line (15 cm long, 1 mm wide).
Figure 29.
Figure 29.
FEM simulation of the “horseshoe-shape”.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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