CONVERGENCE OF ELECTRONICS AND TEXTILES FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW (E-TEXTILES)

Submitted by:

Ch.Adithya, C.Ramachandra Raju, II B.Tech.,[EEE], II B.Tech.,[EEE], GPREC. GPREC. ABSTRACT:

Today, the interaction of human

individuals with electronic devices demands specific

user skills. In future, improved user interfaces can

largely alleviate this problem and push the

exploitation of microelectronics considerably. In this

context, the concept of smart clothes promises

greater user friendliness, user empowerment, and

more efficient services support Wearable electronics

responds to the acting individual in a more or less

invisible way. It serves individual needs and thus

makes life much easier. We believe that today, the

cost level of important microelectronic functions is

sufficiently low and enabling key technologies are

mature

enough to exploit this vision to the benefit of society.

In the following, we present various

technology components to enable the integration of

electronics into textiles.

INTRODUCTION:

Wearable electronics go far beyond just very

small electronic devices to wearable flexible

computers. Not only will these devices be

embedded in textile substrates, but an

electronics device or system could

ultimately become the fabric itself.

Electronic textiles (e-textiles) will allow the

design and production of a new generation

of garments with distributed sensors and

electronic functions. Such e-textiles will

have the revolutionary ability to sense, act,

store, emit, and move - think biomedical

monitoring functions or new man-machine

interfaces - while ideally leveraging an

existing low-cost textile manufacturing

infrastructure.

In the following, various technology

components to enable the integration of

electronics into textiles are discussed. Key

elements are Photonic textiles using LED

fabrics, a silicon-based micro-machined

thermoelectric generator chip for energy

harvesting from body heat, an interwoven

antenna concept for RFID labels for the

identification of textiles, application

nanotechnology in the development of CNT

yarns and bio-sensing textiles.

PHOTONIC TEXTILES:

One of the most interesting new

developments to go on display is the

demonstration of the

Developents with photonic textiles-fabrics

that contain lighting systems and can

therefore serve as displays. At first glance,

objects such as clothing, towels, upholstery,

and drapes would seem unlikely places on

which to place intelligent and interactive

systems. Yet these low-tech objects figure

prominently in our lives. By integrating

flexible arrays of multicolored light-emitting

diodes (LEDs) into fabrics and doing so

without compromising the softness of the

cloth.To meet the challenge of creating

light-emitting cloth objects that retain their

softness, researchers have developed an

interconnecting substrate made entirely of

cloth. On these substrates, the researchers

have placed passive matrices of compact

RGB LED packages. The pixilated

luminaries with relatively large distance

between the RGB pixels have been

embedded in such everyday objects as

cushions, backpacks, and floor mats. Since

the fabric material covering the miniature

light sources naturally diffuses light,each

pixel seems bigger than it actually is. The

LEDs, therefore, remain small and

unobtrusive, while the fabric retains its soft

look and feel.

LEDs into the weave

Photonic textiles can also be made

interactive, by incorporating sensors (such

as orientation and pressure sensors) and

communication devices (such as Bluetooth,

GSM) into the fabric. It can also be used to

ensure the safety of road workers and bike

riders, for example.

LED FABRIC

Array of multicolored light -emitting

diodes in fabrics

LED SHOOES- HIGH FAS led shoes

LED BALLET SHOES/ T SHIRTS

The ballet shoes and accompanying leg-

warmers contain LEDs, a soft switch, a

power on accumulator and a power

generator, connected through conductive

threads. Dancing illuminates the LEDs

creating a sense of satisfaction and wonder.

The more the dancer dances, the more light

and well-being is created. The Ballerina is

now given the chance to illuminate herself,

if only for a moment, creating a moment of

contemplation and surprise. The underlying

principles of human-powered illumination

represented also helps to bring to the surface

issues of power-conservation and alternative

energy sources.

Led t-shirts ,a modern way of advertisement

INTERCONNECT AND PACKAGING

TECHNOLOGY

An interconnect and packaging technology

is demonstrated using a polyester narrow

fabric with several warp threads replaced by

copper wires which are coated with silver

and polyester. Six of those parallel

conductive warp threads form one lead. For

the electrical connections the coating of the

wires and the surrounding textile material is

removed by laser treatment forming holes as

shown in Fig 8 .middle. A thin flexible

printed circuit board (PCB) is attached to the

polyester fabric before the holes in the fabric

are soldered. Then the module is

encapsulated for mechanical protection. The

complete unit is molded forming a

hermetically sealed casing that protects it

against mechanical and and chemical stress

caused by wearing and cleaning the textile

(Fig 8, bottom). As a demonstrator, a speech

controlled MP3 player system is realized

which is based on a DSP/μC-two processor

system. The system architecture is

composed of four units, all connected via the

conductive textiles: the

audio module which is a miniaturized PCB

containing the audio chip with several

auxiliary elements, a detachable module

containing a rechargeable Li-ion battery and

a Multimedia Card for data storage, an

earphone and microphone module, and a

capacitive keyboard module. The user can

control the music player either by speaker

independent voice recognition or by means

of the keypad. When integrating the

proposed system into clothing, special care

is necessary for the textile design. The

materials are chosen according to maximum

wear comfort and environmental

compliance. E.g., the audio module has been

fully covered by garment, so that the wearer

still feels a textile touch.

Textile integration of electronic circuitry

using a small printed circuit board that

contains the electronic function (top). A

polyester fabric is used with warp threads

locally replaced by electrically isolated

copper wires. The contact areas in flexible

printed circuit board is used. Finally the

structure is encapsulated

by a molding process (bottom).

WEARABLE ELECTRONICS

CLOTHES AND HOME

TEXTILES:

Advances in textile technology, it and

modern materials science are promoting a

new breed of functional fabrics resulting in

some truly smart and clever clothing fashion

designers are adding wires, circuits, and

optical fibers to traditional textiles, creating

garments that glow in the dark or keep the

wearer warm. The modern wearable

electronic clothes provide new look, high

fashion and advantages of using electronic

gadgets.

Some of products are

LED T-SHIRTS

SPY / DEDUCTIVE gadgets equipped

wear

Glow-in-the-dark bridal gown

Sparkling cocktail dresses

Wi fi signal deducting sensor enabled

jackets/T SHIRTS

Talking t shirts – mobile phone

technology interlaced

Led pillows

Wearable sensor RSI detectors

LED T SHIRTS

SPY / DEDUCTIVE gadgets equipped

wear Smart Fabrics: Context is developing

wearable sensors that could detect RSI.

CONCLUSION

The realization of 'textile electronics' is a

result of the convergence of

microelectronics with textiles surrounding

us in our daily life, be it clothing, home

textiles or technical textiles. This process

requires the development of enabling key

technologies.Various technology

demonstrators were proposed which

consistently aim for improving the

interaction between the human individual

and information technology. They open the

way to promising scenarios like ambient

intelligence that may lead to a completely

new market of microelectronic technologies

in just a few years time.

Refrences:

1. http://www.gizmag.com

2.http://www.photonics.com/Content/

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