E-TEXTILES

1.INTRODUCTION
Electronic textiles, also known as smart garments, smart clothing, smart textiles, or
smart fabrics, are fabrics that enable digital components such as a battery and a light
(including small computers), and electronics to be embedded in them. Smart textiles are
fabrics that have been developed with new technologies that provide added value to the
wearer. Pailes-Friedman of the Pratt Institute states that "what makes smart fabrics
revolutionary is that they have the ability to do many things that traditional fabrics cannot,
including communicate, transform, conduct energy and even grow".

Smart textiles can be broken into two different categories: aesthetic and performance
enhancing. Aesthetic examples include fabrics that light up and fabrics that can change
colour. Some of these fabrics gather energy from the environment by harnessing vibrations,
sound or heat, reacting to these inputs. The colour changing and lighting scheme can also
work by embedding the fabric with electronics that can power it. Performance enhancing
smart textiles are intended for use in athletic, extreme sports and military applications.
These include fabrics designed to regulate body temperature, reduce wind resistance, and
control muscle vibration – all of which may improve athletic performance. Other fabrics
have been developed for protective clothing, to guard against extreme environmental
hazards, such as radiation and the effects of space travel.The health and beauty industry is
also taking advantage of these innovations, which range from drug-releasing medical
textiles, to fabric with moisturizer, perfume, and anti-aging properties.Many smart clothing,
wearable technology, and wearable computingprojects involve the use of e-textiles.

Electronic textiles are distinct from wearable computing because emphasis is placed on the
seamless integration of textiles with electronic elements like microcontrollers, sensors, and
actuators. Furthermore, e-textiles need not be wearable. For instance, e-textiles are also
found in interior design.

The related field of fibretonics explores how electronic and computational functionality can
be integrated into textile fibers.

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A new report from Cientifica Research examines the markets for textile based wearable
technologies, the companies producing them and the enabling technologies. The report
identifies three distinct generations of textile wearable technologies:

1."First generation" attach a sensor to apparel. This approach is currently taken by

sportswear brands such as Adidas, Nike and Under Armour

2."Second generation" products embed the sensor in the garment, as demonstrated by

current products from Samsung, Alphabet, Ralph Lauren and Flex.

3.In "third generation" wearables, the garment is the sensor. A growing number of
companies are creating pressure, strain and temperature sensors for this purpose.

Future applications for e-textiles may be developed for sports and well-being products, and
medical devices for patient monitoring. Technical textiles, fashion and entertainment will
also be significant applications.

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2.HISTORY

The basic materials needed to construct e-textiles, conductive threads and fabrics have been
around for over 1000 years. In particular, artisans have been wrapping fine metal foils, most
often gold and silver, around fabric threads for centuries.Many of Queen's gowns, for
example, were embroidered with gold-wrapped threads.

At the end of the 19th century, as people developed and grew accustomed to electric
appliances, designers and engineers began to combine electricity with clothing and jewelry
—developing a series of illuminated and motorized necklaces, hats, brooches 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 ground-breaking
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.

In 1985, inventor Harry Wainwright created the first fully animated sweatshirt. The shirt
consisted of fiber optics, leads, and a microprocessor to control individual frames of
animation. The result was a full color cartoon displayed on the surface of the shirt. in 1995,
Wainwright went on to invent the first machine enabling fiber optics to be machined into
fabrics, the process needed for manufacturing enough for mass markets and, in 1997, hired
a German machine designer, Herbert Selbach, from Selbach Machinery to produce the
world's first CNC machine able to automatically implant fiber optics into any flexible
material. Receiving the first of a dozen patents based on LED/Optic displays and machinery
in 1989, the first CNC machines went into production in 1998 beginning with the
production of animated coats for Disney Parks in 1998. The first ECG bio-physical display
jackets employing LED/optic displays were created by Wainwright and David Bychkov, the

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CEO of Exmovere at the time in 2005 using GSR sensors in a watch connected via
Bluetooth to the embedded machine washable display in a denim jacket and were
demonstrated at the Smart Fabrics Conference held in Washington, D.C. May 7, 2007.
Additional smart fabric technologies were unveiled by Wainwright at two Flextech Flexible
Display conferences held in Phoenix, AZ, showing infrared digital displays machine-
embedded into fabrics for IFF(Identification of friend or foe) which were submitted to BAE
Systems for evaluation in 2006 and won an "Honorable Mention" award from NASA in
2010 on their Tech Briefs, "Design the Future" contest. MIT personnel purchased several
fully animated coats for their researchers to wear at their demonstrations in 1999 to bring
attention to their "Wearable Computer" research. Wainwright was commissioned to speak at
the Textile and Colorists Conference in Melbourne, Australia on June 5, 2012 where he was
requested to demonstrate his fabric creations that change color using any smart phone,
indicate callers on mobile phones without a digital display, and contain WIFI security
features that protect purses and personal items from theft.

In the mid-1990s a team of MIT researchers led by Steve Mann, Thad Starner, and Sandy
Pentland began to develop what they termed wearable computers. These devices consisted
of traditional computer hardware attached to and carried on the body. In response to
technical, social, and design challenges faced by these researchers, another group at MIT,
that included Maggie Orth and Rehmi Post, began to explore how such devices might be
more gracefully integrated into clothing and other soft substrates. Among other
developments, this team explored integrating digital electronics with conductive fabrics and
developed a method for embroidering electronic circuits.One of the first commercially
available wearable Arduino based microcontrollers, called the Lilypad Arduino, was also
created at the MIT Media Lab by Leah Buechley.

Fashion houses like CuteCircuit are utilizing e-textiles for their haute couture collections
and special projects. CuteCircuit's Hug Shirt allows the user to send electronic hugs through
sensors within the garment.

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3.SENSORS

Smart textile fabric can be made from materials ranging from traditional cotton, polyester,
and nylon, to advanced Kevlar with integrated functionalities. At present, however, fabrics
with electrical conductivity are of interest. Electrically conductive fabrics have been
produced by deposition of metal nanoparticles around the woven fibers and fabrics. The
resulting metallic fabrics are conductive, hydrophilic and have high electroactive surface
areas. These properties render them ideal substrates for electrochemical biosensing, which
has been demonstrated with the detection of DNA and proteins.

There are two kinds of smart textile (fabric) products that have been developed and studied
for health monitoring: Fabric with textile-based sensor electronics and fabric that envelopes
traditional sensor electronics. It has shown that weaving can be used to incorporate
electrically conductive yarn into a fabric to obtain a textile that can be used as a "Wearable
Motherboard". It can connect multiple sensors on the body, such as wet gel ECG electrodes,
to the signal acquisition electronics. Later research has shown that conductive yarns can be
instrumental in the fabrication of textile-based sensors made of fabric or metallic meshes
coated with silver or conductive metal cores woven into the fabric.

There are two broad approaches to the fabrication of garments with ECG sensor electrodes
in research:

1. Finished garments through functionalization or integration of finished garments with

sensor elements. This approach involves the integration of finished electrodes into finished
garments by simply stitching the electrodes at the appropriate locations on the garment or
using deposition techniques to transfer the functional materials at the appropriate locations.

2.Unfinished garments. The introduction of smart materials during the garment fabrication
process. This in Finished approach entails the use of textile fabrication techniques to form
woven or nonwoven fabrics with the inclusion of functional materials.

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4.FIBRETRONICS

Just as in classical electronics, the construction of electronic capabilities on textile fibers

requires the use of conducting and semi-conducting materials such as a conductive
textile.There are a number of commercial fibers today that include metallic fibre mixed
with textile fibers to form conducting fibers that can be woven or sewn. However, because
both metals and classical semiconductors are stiff material, they are not very suitable for
textile fiber applications, since fibers are subjected to much stretch and bending during use.

One of the most important issues of e-textiles is that the fibers should be washable.
Electrical components would thus need to be insulated during washing to prevent damage.

A new class of electronic materials that are more suitable for e-textiles is the class of
organic electronics materials, because they can be conducting, as well as semiconducting,
and designed as inks and plastics.

Some of the most advanced functions that have been demonstrated in the lab include:

1.Organic fiber transistors: the first textile fiber transistor that is completely compatible
with textile manufacturing and that contains no metals at all.

2.Organic solar cells on fibers.

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5.USES

1.Health monitoring of vital signs such as heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, activity,
and posture.

2.Sports training data acquisition.

3.Monitoring personnel handling hazardous materials.

4.Tracking the position and status of soldiers in action.

5.Military app – Soldier's bulletproof kevlar vest; if the wearer is shot, the material can
sense the bullet's impact and send a radio message back to base.

6.Monitoring pilot or truck driver fatigue.

7.Diagnosing amputee discomfort.

8.Innovative fashion (wearable tech).

9.Regain sensory perception that was previously lost by accident or birth.

Figure 5 : Military T-shirt

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6.TYPES OF SMART TEXTILES

According to the manner of reaction, smart textiles can be divided into three subgroups.
[1]: Passive smart textiles can only sense the environment, they are sensors; Active smart
textiles can sense the stimuli from the environment and also react to them, besides the
sensor function, they also have an actuator function; Finally, very smart textiles take a step
further, having the gift to adapt their behavior to the circumstances.
6.1 FUNCTIONS OF SMART TEXTILES
Basically, five functions can be distinguished in an intelligent suit, namely: Sensors, Data
processing, Actuators, Storage and Communication. They all have a clear role, although not
all intelligent suits will contain all functions. The functions may be quite apparent, or may
be an intrinsic property of the material or structure. They all require appropriate materials
and structures, and they must be compatible with the function of clothing: comfortable,
durable, resistant to regular textile maintenance processes and so on.
6.2 DATA PROCESSING
Data processing is one of the components that are required only when active processing is
necessary. The main bottleneck at present is the interpretation of the data. Textile sensors
could provide a huge number of data, but what do they mean? Problems are: large
variations of signals between patients, complex analysis of stationary and time dependent
signals, lack of objective standard values, lack of understanding of complex
interrelationships between parameters.
Apart from this, the textile material in itself does not have any computing power at all.
Pieces of electronics are still necessary. However, they are available in miniaturized and
even in a flexible form. They are embedded in water proof materials, but durability is still
limited.
Research is going on to fix the active components on fibers . Many practical problems need
to be overcome before real computing fibers will be on the market: fastness to washing,
deformation, interconnections, etc.

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6.3 ACTUATORS
Actuators respond to an impulse resulting from the sensor function, possibly after data
processing. Actuators make things move, they release substances, make noise, and many
others. Shape memory materials are the best-known examples in this area. Shape memory
alloys exist in the form of threads. Because of its ability to react to a temperature change, a
shape memory material can be used as an actuator and links up perfectly with the
requirements imposed to smart textiles.
Until now, few textile applications of shape memory alloys are known. The Italian firm,
Corpo Nove, in co-operation with d’Appolonia, developed the Oricalco Smart Shirt .

6.4 STORAGE
Smart suit often need some storage capacity. Storage of data or energy is most common,
sensing, data processing, actuation, communication; they usually need energy, mostly
electrical power. Efficient energy management will consist of an appropriate combination
of energy supply and energy storage capacity. Sources of energy that are available to a
garment are for instance body hear (Infineon ), mechanical motion (elastic from
deformation of the fabrics, kinetic from body motion), radiation (solar energy ), etc.

6.5 COMMUNICATION
For intelligence textiles, communication has many faces: communication may be required
within one element of a suit, between the individual elements within the suit, from the
wearer to the suit to pass instructions, from the suit to the wearer or his environment to
pass information. Within the suit, communication is currently realized by either optical
fibers , either conductive yarns .
Communication with the wearer is possible for instance by the following technologies: for
the development of a flexible textile screen, the use of optical fibers is obvious as well.
France Telecom has managed to realize some prototypes (a sweater and a backpack).

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7.APPLICATIONS
Smart textiles are on the world market since the late 80’s. Their application is getting wider
and wider since then. These days, it is not hard to get self-cleaning carpets, shape memory
and environment-responsive textiles , temperature regulating suit and shoes . They are on
applications in geo textiles, bio medical textiles, sports, protective clothing’s, casual
clothing’s especially for winter wears.

7.1 Gore – Tex Smart Fabric, Jacket

The Gore-Tex is the first truly smart fabric designed by Gore Company in the year 1978. It
has the capability of letting water and moisture flow in one direction and not in the other;
this property makes it waterproof, windproof and breathable .
The fabric membrane has pore density of 10 billion pores per square inch. Since the
diameter of the pores is on the microscopic level, they are 20000 thousand times smaller
than a water droplet . Because of this GORE-TEX fabric membrane is waterproof from the
outside. The pore diameters are about 700 times larger than a water vapor molecule; they
allow perspiration and water vapor to escape from the inside. On the fabric surface, an oil-
hating substance uses in preventing the penetration of body oils. It also repels insects that
can affect the membrane. There is lamination between high-performance fabrics that are
extremely breathable.
7.2 Wearable Motherboard
Georgia Tech was the pioneering institute for the development of SFIT that integrates
electronics. During a project funded by the US Naval Department in 1996, they have
developed a "Wearable Motherboard" (GTWM commercial name is Smart shirt) [19, 20],
which was manufactured for use in combat conditions. The garment uses optical fibres to
detect bullet wounds and special sensors that interconnect in order to monitor vital signs
during combat conditions. Medical sensing devices that are attached to the body plug into
the computerised shirt, creating a flexible motherboard. The GTWM is woven so that
plastic optical fibres and other special threads are integrated into the structure of the fabric.
The GTWM identifies the exact location of the physical problem or injury and transmits the

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information in seconds. This helps to determine who needs immediate attention within the
first hour of combat, which is often the most critical during battle. Furthermore, the types of
sensors used can be varied depending on the wearer's needs. Therefore, it can be
customised for each user. For example, a fire-fighter could have a sensor that monitors
oxygen or hazardous gas levels. Other sensors monitor respiration rate and body
temperature, etc.

Figure 7.2 :wearable motherboard

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8.SMART MATERIALS AND FIBERS IN SMART TEXTILES

‘Smart’ or ‘Functional’ materials usually form part of a ‘Smart System’ that has the
capability to sense its environment and the effects thereof and, if truly smart, to respond to
that external stimulus via an active control mechanism. Smart materials and systems occupy
a ‘Technology space’, which also includes the areas of sensors and actuators.

8.1 Materials

The materials of our surroundings are being “intellectualized”. These materials can interact,
communicate and sense. Polymeric or carbon coated threads Conductive yarn, conductive
rubber, and conductive ink have been developed into sensors or used as an interconnection
substrate. Conductive yarns and fibers are made by mixing pure metallic or natural fibers
with conductive materials. Pure metallic yarns can be made of composite stainless steel or
fine continuous conductive metal-alloy combination of fibers with conductive materials can
be completed by the methods namely: Fibers filled with conductive material (e.g., carbon
-or metallic particles); Fibers coated with conductive polymers or metal and Fibers spun
with thin metallic or plastic conductive threads.

Metallic silk, organza, stainless steel filament, metal clad aramid fiber, conductive polymer
fiber, conductive polymer coating and special carbon fiber have been applied to the
manufacture of fabric sensors.

Materials such as metallic, optical fibers and conductive polymers may be integrated into
the textile structure, thus supplying electrical conductivity, sensing capabilities and data
transmission. Organic polymers may provide a solution to overcome the stiffness of
inorganic crystals such as silicon. These materials are light, elastic, resilient, mechanically
flexible, inexpensive and easy to process.

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8.2 Metal Fibers

Metal threads are made up of metal fibers which are very thin metal. The fibers are produced either
through a bundle-drawing process or else shaved off the edge of thin metal sheeting. Metallic
threads and yarns may be knitted or woven into a textile and used to form interconnects between
components (Figure 8.2). They may also be used as electrodes for monitoring electrical
physiologicalactivity such as electrocardiogram (ECG)

Figure 8.2: Metal fiber.

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8.3 Conductive inks

A layout can be screen-printed using conductive inks to add conductivity to specific areas
of a garment. Carbon, copper, silver, nickel and gold may be added to conventional printing
inks to make them conductive (Figure 8.3). Printed areas can be subsequently used as
switches or pressure pads for the activation of circuits.

Figure 8.3 : Conductive Inks

8.4 Inherently conductive polymers

Inherently conductive polymers have both sensing and actuation properties. Some
commonly had known ICPs include polyacetylene, polypyrrole, polyaniline. Polypyrrole
(PPy) is most suitable as it has high mechanical strength with high elasticity, is relatively
stable in air and electro. The major advantage of this approach is that the sensors retain the
natural texture of the material. The problem with these devices is a variation in resistance
over time and high response time.

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8.5 Electrically conductive textiles

Electrically conductive textiles are already used for years in various industrial application
fields for the purpose of controlling static and electromagnetic interference shielding.
Nowadays, textiles are modified to offer a good electrical conductivity to be applied in
smart textiles (Figure 8.5). Here electrically conductive textiles are used as electrodes or as
interconnection between the different components.

Figure 8.5 : Electrically conductive textiles

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8.6 Optical fibers

Plastic optical fibers may be easily integrated into a textile. They have the advantage of not
generating heat and are insensitive to EM radiation. Optical fibers may serve a number of
functions in a smart garment-transmit data signals, transmit light for optical sensing, detect
deformations in fabrics due to stress and strain and perform chemical sensing.
Commercially available Luminex ®fabric is a textile with woven optical fibers capable of
emitting its own light (Figure 8.6). While this has aesthetic appeal for the fashion industry
it is also used in safety vests and potential to be used for data transmissio n.

Figure 8.6 : Optical fibers.

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8.7 Shape memory materials

Shape memory alloys, such as nickel-titanium, have been developed to provide increased
protection against sources of heat. A shape memory alloy possesses different properties
below and above the temperature at which it is activated. At the activation temperature, the
alloy exerts a force to return to a previously adopted shape and becomes much stiffer. The
temparature of activation can be chosen by altering the ratio of nickel to titanium in the
alloy (Figure 8.7).

Figure 8.7 : Shape memory materials.

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9.CONCLUSION
Smart textiles are the most exciting innovation in the field of textile engineering. The development

of smart textiles reaches far beyond imagination; some stories may seem science fiction. The

economic value and impact of smart textiles is gigantic. The advent of smart textiles makes it

possible to being the traditional textile sector to a level of high-technological industry. Moreover, it

appears that this is only possible by intense co-operation between people from various backgrounds

and disciplines such as microelectronics, computer science, material science, polymer science,

biotechnology, etc. Also more research needs to make it more convenient in our practical life.

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REFERENCES

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[15] "Towards Woven Logic from Organic Electronic Fibres", Nature Materials, Nature Publishing
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