October 1, 2015

Fashion first: Researchers knit ‘talking’ textiles

In a world-first, UOW researchers have weaved their magic to create a new form of functional fashion by using conventional knitting techniques.

The development, which allows the monitoring of human movement, shows great promise for sports training purposes or rehabilitation following injury.

Researchers at the UOW-headquartered ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science (ACES) have incorporated advanced fibres that act as human movement sensors (wearable strain gauges) into a textile structure.

Traditional sensors have been fabricated using metallic fibres/yarns as conductors, but the limitations of these are numerable – low flexibility, irritation to wearers, a short lifespan and structural damage as a result of friction.

Using all polymer-based fibres, in this case polyurethane and an organic electronic conductor, overcomes these shortcomings by increasing the working life of the sensor and improving the wearability of the garment. 

While conductive coatings on textiles have been used before, the ACES team was able to fabricate individual electrically conductive and stretchable polymeric fibres by using a technique called ‘wet-spinning’, thus allowing large scale production.

They have now knitted these fibre sensors into textiles. The knitted textile based on the polymeric composite fibres, produced at the Australian National Fabrication Facility, are highly sensitive, stable and able to detect a wide range of human movement. 

The team demonstrated a working device with remote sensing capabilities using a knee sleeve prototype of the fabric that ‘talks’ to a commercial wireless receiver. Researcher Dr Shayan Seyedin said that this was the real breakthrough.

“We built these textile sensors from the individual fibres produced using the technology that we established recently,” he said. 

“These advanced functional fibres are not only stretchable but also conduct electricity. This combination of outstanding properties allows the fibres to respond to any type of deformation by changing their electrical response.”

Dr Seyedin said wearable smart clothing was the team’s next target.

ACES Director Gordon Wallace said an interdisciplinary approach to the research was crucial to the team’s success.

“These advances are made possible by the combination of skills that ARC Centres of Excellence bring together to tackle challenging areas,” he said. “We are able to take fundamental advances in materials science and engineering and to realise wearable structures for use in sports training and rehabilitation applications.”

A paper detailing the work, 'Knitted Strain Sensor Textiles of Highly Conductive All Polymeric Fibers', was recently published in Applied Materials and Interfaces.