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ELECTRONIC TEXTILES
Sikander Anwer
Department in Textile Engineering
University of Management & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan
Cell: 0322-4875571
Email:111811016@umt.edu.pk
HISTORY:
At the end of the 19th century, as people developed and grew accustomed to electronic appliances, designers and engineers began to combine electricity with clothing and jewelry developing a series of illuminated and motorized necklaces, hats, broaches and costumes. For example, in the late 1800s, a person could hire young women adorned in light-studded evening gowns from the Electric Girl Lighting Company to provide cocktail party entertainment.
In 1968, the Museum of Contemporary Craft in New York City held a groundbreaking exhibition called Body Covering that focused on the relationship between technology and apparel. The show featured astronauts’ space suits along with clothing that could inflate and deflate, light up, and heat and cool itself. Particularly noteworthy in this collection was the work of Diana Dew, a designer who created a line of electronic fashion, including electroluminescent party dresses and belts that could sound alarm sirens.
INTRODUCTION:
An electronic textile is a fabric that can conduct electricity. If it is combined with electronic components it can sense changes in its environment and respond by giving off light, sound or radio waves.. Electronic textiles (e-textiles) are fabrics that have electronics and interconnections woven into them. Components and interconnections are a part of the fabric and thus are much less visible and, more importantly, not susceptible to becoming tangled together or snagged by the surroundings. An electronic textile refers to a textile substrate that incorporates capabilities for sensing (biometric or external), communication (usually wireless), power transmission, and interconnection technology to allow sensors or things such as information processing devices to be networked together within a fabric. Electronic textiles allow little bits of computation to occur on the body. They usually contain conductive yarns that are either spun or twisted and incorporate some amount of conductive material (such as strands of silver or stainless steel) to enable electrical conductivity.
DEFINITION:
E-textiles, also known as electronic textiles or smart textiles, are fabrics that enable digital components (including small computers), and electronics to be embedded in them.
PROPERTIES OF E-TEXTILE:
- Flexible
- No wires to snag environment
- Large surface area for sensing
- Invisible to others
- Cheap manufacturing
- Permeability
- Strength
- Thermal Resistance
- Electrical resistance
The field of e-textiles can be divided into two main types:
- E-textiles with classical electronic devices such as conductors, integrated circuits, LEDs, and conventional batteries embedded into garments.
- E-textiles with electronics integrated directly into the textile substrates. This can include either passive electronics such as conductors and resistors or active components like transistors, diodes, and solar cells.
EXPLANATION:
Manufacturing of E-Textiles:
A thread can be made to conduct electricity by either coating it with metals like copper or silver. It can also be made conductive by combining cotton or nylon fibers with metal fibers when it is spun.
Inputs for E-Textiles:
To obtain information for wearable devices components such as sensors are often used, for instance, environmental sensors, antennas, global positioning system receivers, sound sensors and cameras. Such sensors can be divided on active and passive (Langenhove & Hertleer, 2004)(Seymour, 2009). Active inputs are controlled by a user via a tactile or acoustic feedback system, which provides an intuitive interaction with the garment. Passive inputs collect biometric data from the human body as well as environmental data collected via wireless transmission system.
Construction of E-Textiles:
- Lily Pad Arduino
- Fabric kit.
- Aniomagic
- Flora
2. Conductive threads and yarns have a similar purpose to wires and that is to create conductive paths from one point to another. However, unlike wires they are flexible and can be sewn, woven or embroidered onto textile, allowing for soft circuits to be created. Conductive threads and yarns offer alternative ways of connecting electronics on soft and flexible textiles medium as well offering traditional textile manufacturing techniques for creating computational garments.
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| Conductive threads |
4. Conductive ink is an ink that conducts electricity, providing new ways of printing or drawing circuits. This special ink can be applied to textile and other substrates. Conductive inks contain powdered metals such as carbon, copper or silver mixed with traditional inks.
Other materials are:
- Shape memory alloys (SMA or muscle wire)
- Piezoelectric materials
- Chromic materials
- Photo-chromic (inks and dyes)
- Thermo-chromic inks
- Nano-materials and microfibers
Some of the most advanced functions that have been demonstrated in the lab include:
- Organic fiber transistors: The first textile fiber transistor that is completely compatible with textile manufacturing and that contains no metals at all.
- Organic solar cells on fibers
The use of fabric as station to deploy electrical components results in wearable electrical/ computing devices.
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