Page 63 - TEXtalks. July- August 2023

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The next-generation

smart textiles

Researchers have developed next-generation smart diodes, and transistors have been fabricated,
textiles – incorporating LEDs, sensors, energy encapsulated, and mixed with conventional fibres,
harvesting, and storage – that can be produced either synthetic or natural, to build smart textiles by
inexpensively in any shape or size, using the same automated weaving. The fibre devices were
machines used to make conventional clothing. interconnected by an automated laser welding
method with electrically conductive adhesive.
Last year, some of the researchers demonstrated that
if the fibres used in smart textiles were coated with The processes were all optimized to minimize
materials that can withstand stretching, they could be damage to the electronic components, which in turn
compatible with conventional weaving processes. made the smart textiles durable enough to withstand
Using this technique, they produced a 46-inch woven the stretching of an industrial weaving machine. The
demonstrator display. encapsulation method was developed to consider
the functionality of the fibre devices, and the
Now they have shown that smart textiles can be mechanical force and thermal energy were
made using automated processes, with no limits on investigated systematically to achieve automated
their size or shape. Multiple types of fibre devices, weaving and laser-based interconnection,
including energy storage devices, light-emitting respectively.

Smart clothing

for industrial

robots

RobotSweater fabric can be customized to fit uneven When pressure is applied to the fabric from someone
three-dimensional surfaces. The same qualities that touching it, the conductive yarn closes a circuit and
make a knitted sweater comfortable and easy to is read by the sensors.
wear will allow robots to better interact with humans.
In addition to the design of the knitted layers – the
The RobotSweater, developed by a research team culmination of hundreds of samples and tests – the
from Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, team faced another challenge in connecting the
is a machine-knitted textile “skin” that can sense wiring and electronics components to the soft textile.
Once fitted to the robot’s body, RobotSweater can
contact and pressure.
sense the distribution, shape and force of the
contact. It’s also more accurate and effective than
The knitted fabric consists of two layers of yarn made
the visual sensors most robots rely on now. The
with metallic fibers to conduct electricity. Sandwiched
robot will move in the way that the human pushes it,
between the two is a netlike, lace-patterned layer.
or can respond to human social gestures.
July/August 2023