Wearable Electronic Textiles for Healthcare, Wellbeing, and Protective Applications

Electronic textiles (E-textiles) can act as an exceptional substrate for incorporating sensing devices for monitoring physiological parameters, as they are comfortable to wear close to the skin. This makes them excellent for a variety of applications in the healthcare, wellbeing, and personal protection sectors. One method of creating E-textiles with good textile properties is to integrate an electronic component into a yarn to create an electronic yarn (or E-yarn), which can then be used to construct a textile. This Interactivity Lab Demonstration will present electronic textiles developed by the Advanced Textiles Research Group (ATRG) from Nottingham Trent University (UK). The group has conducted a wealth of research into the development of E-yarns and the incorporation of these into textiles and garment. At CHI, users will be able to interact with textiles capable of fall and near-fall detection, temperature sensing, acoustic sensing, giving haptic feedback, and harvesting solar energy.