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Distributed sensing along fibers for smart clothing
Brett C Hannigan1, Tyler J Cuthbert1, Chakaveh Ahmadizadeh1
1Biomedical and Mobile Health Technology Laboratory, Department of Health Sciences and Technology, ETH Zurich, Lengghalde 5, 8008 Zurich, Switzerland.
Science Advances
|March 20, 2024
Summary
Smart clothing uses textile sensors for unobtrusive movement tracking. This study introduces a novel helical auxetic yarn sensor for reliable, scalable connections in wearable electronics, enabling accurate joint angle measurement.
Area of Science:
- Wearable electronics
- Textile sensors
- Biomedical engineering
Background:
- Smart clothing offers unobtrusive monitoring of movement and biosignals.
- Current challenges include unreliable connections between rigid and textile components, hindering mass production.
- Existing methods are incompatible with textile manufacturing processes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a scalable and reliable sensing solution for smart clothing.
- To address limitations in connecting textile sensors to electronic readouts.
- To enable unobtrusive, distributed strain sensing in garments.
Main Methods:
- Development of a prototype garment with a compact readout circuit and algorithm.
- Utilization of a helical auxetic yarn sensor with tunable sensitivity.
- Demonstration of distributed sensing using a single continuous fiber.
Main Results:
- Localized strain measurement along multiple regions of a single fiber.
- Successful monitoring of arm joint angles (shoulder, elbow, wrist) from distributed textile sensors.
- Achieved approximately five degrees of error compared to optical motion capture.
Conclusions:
- The developed helical auxetic yarn sensor offers a promising solution for reliable interfacing in smart clothing.
- This approach supports scalable mass production of wearable electronic garments.
- The system provides accurate, unobtrusive joint angle tracking for various applications.
