Textiles gain

intelligence
by Paula Gould

Advances in textile technology, computer The term ‘smart dresser’ could soon acquire a new
engineering, and materials science are promoting a meaning. An unlikely alliance between textile
manufacturers, materials scientists, and computer
new breed of functional fabrics. Fashion designers are
engineers has resulted in some truly clever clothing1-4.
adding wires, circuits, and optical fibers to traditional
From self-illuminating handbag interiors to a gym kit
textiles, creating garments that glow in the dark or that monitors workout intensity, the prototypes just
keep the wearer warm. Meanwhile, electronics keep coming. But researchers have yet to answer the
engineers are sewing conductive threads and sensors million-dollar question, perhaps critical to consumer
into body suits that map users’ whereabouts and acceptance, will they go in the wash?
respond to environmental stimuli. Researchers agree Designers have been quick to jump onboard the high-tech
fabric bandwagon, adopting electronic display technologies
that the development of genuinely interactive
to create colorful, novelty clothing items. For example, the
electronic textiles is technically possible, and that Italian-made fabric Luminex®, which contains colored light-
challenges in scaling up the handmade garments will emitting diodes (LEDs), has been used to make a glow-in-the-
eventually be overcome. Now they must determine dark bridal gown, sparkly cocktail dresses, and costumes for
opera singers. Luminex is made by binding LED fibers into the
how best to use the technology. ends of ordinary fabric, which then form the seams of tailor-
made clothing. The fibers are powered by tiny, rechargeable
batteries that are turned on by the wearer via a hidden
switch. Flicking the switch causes the fibers to glow in one of
five different colors, giving Luminex garments an overall
appearance of shininess when the lights are dimmed5.
France Telecom has gone one step further, developing a
flexible, battery-powered optical fiber screen that can be
woven into clothing6-7. Each plastic fiber-optic thread is
illuminated by tiny LEDs that are fixed along the edge of the
display panel and controlled by a microchip. The threads are
set up so that certain portions are lit when the LEDs are
switched on, while other sections remain dark. These light
and dark patches essentially act as pixels for the display
screen. A prototype version integrated into a jacket displayed

38 October 2003 ISSN:1369 7021 © Elsevier Ltd 2003

 APPLICATIONS FEATURE

crude but readable symbols. More sophisticated versions may smart clothing at Cornell University. Dunne devised her own
support advertising slogans, safety notices, or simply a range ‘functional fashion garment’ as part of an undergraduate
of different geometric patterns can be switched on and off. project last year, producing a low-cost jacket for joggers and
The marriage of woven fabric with electronics is finding walkers with a pulse monitor stitched to the left cuff.
favor in the world of interior design as well. Maggie Orth, Embedded sensors control conductive material on the back of
cofounder and CEO of a Massachusetts Institute of the jacket to keep the wearer warm should the temperature
Technology start-up, International Fashion Machines, is drop, while electroluminescent wires are fixed to pockets and
currently producing one-of-a-kind, electro-textile wall panels. hems to light up in the dark as a safety feature (Fig. 2). “It
Instead of self-illuminating optical fibers, she is working with doesn’t exist simply to look good, or to attract attention, nor
a fabric known as Electric Plaid™ that exploits reflective does it simply meet needs without regard to aesthetics,” says
coloring. The novel fabric contains interwoven stainless steel Dunne. “Appearance is also a functional need, so it was taken
yarns, painted with thermochromic inks, which are connected into account in the design of the garment. I would like to see
to drive electronics. The flexible wall hangings can then be smart clothing ultimately indistinguishable from the clothing
programmed to change color in response to heat from the we are used to now, except in function.”
conducting wires (Fig. 1). Realization of this vision could be possible with the advent
Elsewhere, garment manufacturers are focusing on of wearable electronic textiles, where functionality is
functional benefits rather than aesthetics. The simplest of incorporated into the fabric. More sophisticated prototypes
these so-called ‘smart clothing’ items are made by adding the for smart clothing items use conductive threads to weave
required circuitry, power sources, electronic devices, and switches, circuits, and sensors into the fabric itself. These
sensors to standard fabric garments. Batteries can be sewn threads can be made from very finely drawn conductive
into pockets, wires fed through seams, and wireless antennae metals, metallic-coated or metal-wrapped yarns, or
attached to collars and cuffs. conductive polymers. Ideas touted to date include jacket-
The design of such clothing items is still important, sleeve keypads for controlling cell phones, pagers, or MP3
although appearance is not the sole criteria, according to players, and sportswear with integral fabric sensors and
Lucy Dunne, a Masters student in wearable technology and display panels, ideal for monitoring heart rate and blood

Fig. 1 Optoelectronic fabrics may find a market in the world of interior design owing to their originality and aesthetic appeal. (Courtesy of Maggie Orth, International Fashion Machines.)

October 2003 39
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electronic components into the fabric itself, if this technology

is going to fulfill its potential, says Tom Martin, assistant
professor in the department of electrical and computer
engineering at Virginia Tech.
“People don’t want cables all over their body. If you’re in
an industrial environment, you don’t want cables because
you’re crawling around in a tight space, the cables get caught
on bolts or other protrusions, they break, and they get
tangled all the time. If you’re a consumer, they just look
ugly,” he says. “If nothing else, if we can weave those
connections into the fabric so I can look at you and think you
just have a normal shirt on, that’s a big step forward.”
Sewing in electrical networking capability is just the first
stage though, Martin says. Genuinely intelligent clothing
would be woven from a selection of thread-like electronic
sensors and battery fibers, as well as flexible, conductive
fibers. Garments would then be able to function as stand-
alone computers, providing wearers with information about
their environment. For example, a context-aware shirt for the
blind might be woven with tiny vibrating motors to provide
warnings about approaching objects, while workers in the
chemical industry could wear overalls capable of detecting a
nearby spillage.
Fig.2 Lucy Dunne models the smart jacket she designed in an undergraduate project.
(Credit: Komposite. © Cornell University.) The cost of developing and manufacturing such
sophisticated fabrics is likely to put them beyond the reach
pressure during a gym workout or morning run. Clothing of the fashion industry for the time being. “I think the main
fitted with textile global positioning system technology could applications are going to be medical, military, and industrial,”
also be suitable for locating skiers or mountaineers in bad Martin says. “Those are the only places that are going to be
weather or even for keeping a watch on young children. able to bear the additional cost of the clothing, at least at
the outset. And they are also the kind of places that have
Wearable intelligence some compelling applications where it is difficult to use
Self-heating hats and glow-in-the-dark sweatshirts might discrete components strapped onto the body.”
correctly be labeled as ‘smart’, but how about a shirt that Virginia Tech researchers are currently one year into a
‘knows’ whether you are free to take a cell phone call or three-year project, funded by the US National Science
retrieve information from a 1000 page safety manual Foundation (NSF), to turn electronic textiles into wearable
displayed on your inside pocket? Such items, termed computers. Team members are using the $400 000 grant to
‘intelligent’ clothing to distinguish them from their lower- develop a ‘design environment’, simulating the functionality
tech cousins, have proved more difficult to patch of planned garments, along with some prototypes to prove
unobtrusively into everyday apparel. Indeed, the first that the simulation concept works. They are also aiming to
prototype ‘wearable computers’ of the early 1990s required devise a set of generic design guidelines for electronic textile
users to strap on a head-mounted visor and carry heavy products. “If we have a simulation environment and a set of
battery packs in their pockets, leading some to question the design rules, then other people won’t have to reinvent the
appropriateness of the term ‘wearable’. wheel,” Martin says. “We’d like people to think broadly about
Batteries are now smaller and lighter, and sensors far less their applications, not the low-level, practical details about
cumbersome. But researchers are going to have to integrate tailoring the garments.”

40 October 2003
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The simulation environment is already being used to the source, because a soundwave traveling across the film
model a garment that can sense its own shape. Patients will apply a different force than a wave traveling the length
undergoing a physical therapy regime could wear such a shirt of the film.”
to find out if they are doing their exercises correctly, and if
their range of motion is increasing, says Martin. Professional Complexity versus durability
golfers and tennis players could also use the shirt to perfect Moving from large-scale sensornets to wearable attire means
their swing or serve. The finished item is likely to be more than simply scaling down the components. Sensornet
fabricated from cloth containing piezoelectric film fibers that mats or drapes can be woven from a single sheet of fabric,
produce a voltage in response to a force and vice versa. “The whereas overalls, shirts, or T-shirts, for example, are generally
film strips allow us to detect movement of the limbs so that stitched together from several different pieces of material.
we can find their position,” Martin says. “We are also looking Cutting electronic cloth clearly makes it more difficult to
at discrete accelerometers to give us this information. It is make good connections between different parts of the same
not clear yet which choice will be better, but the films are garment. One solution could be to manufacture seamless
our preference. We can sew them on in the way you might clothing, which would avoid the cutting and stitching
sew on a ribbon.” problem altogether. Matching the electronic network to a
Team members are also working to create a wearable pattern on the fabric is another option, according to Martin.
version of a giant textile ‘sensornet’ designed to detect noise. Some garment makers already produce clothing with
The fabric, developed with support from the US military, is unbroken patterns running across seams, so all the
fitted with an acoustic beamformer capable of picking up and researchers have to do is weave their networks into the same
pinpointing the location of an approaching vehicle. Electrical pattern. “This may solve our alignment problem for the
connections are made by weaving wires into the heavy-duty wires,” he says. “Now we just have to come up with some
cloth, and discrete microphones are attached at suitable way of making the connections.”
points (Fig. 3), though these could also be replaced by The group is trying to stay as close as possible to
piezoelectric film sensors in the future. conventional large-scale cutting and sewing techniques when
“The film’s sensing properties will be different from a thinking about how electronic textile clothing could be made.
discrete microphone, because the sound will hit a larger For example, the researchers are using standard metal snap
surface area,” Martin says. “Our guess is that the shape of fasteners (press studs) to make electrical connections
that surface will give us information about the direction of between ‘e-buttons’ and conductive fibers. The e-buttons,
essentially small PC boards, contain the garment’s core
electronics. One part of the fastener is attached to the
button, and the other to the item of clothing (Fig. 4). Buttons
can then be fixed on when required, swapped with different
e-buttons if alternative functionality is required, or removed
entirely when the garment is washed. “We have actually had
two reviews from the NSF that said, ‘How do you wash
electronic textile clothing?’” Martin laughs. “Do you wear it
once and throw it away? I don’t think so. It’s too expensive.”
Tünde Kirstein, a member of the Wearable Computing Lab
at ETH Zürich, Switzerland, agrees that washability will be
critical to the commercial success of intelligent clothing. ETH
researchers have developed prototype textile networks, using
interwoven Cu fibers as data transmission lines (Fig. 5). The
conductive fibers are wrapped in a polymer coating that
protects them from daily wear and tear. Fibers are joined to
Fig. 3 The cloth sensornet developed at Virginia Tech could help military personnel detect
and locate approaching enemy vehicles. (Credit: Zahi Nakad.) external components, such as batteries or sensors, with

October 2003 41
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movement, Kirstein says. The team is hoping to have such

fibers embedded in a prototype context-aware garment
within the next couple of years.
Devising a novel way to power the clothing is a further
challenge. Batteries may have reduced in size, but wire
connection to a pocket-held power source still goes against
the grain of ready-to-wear computing. “Our prototypes at
the moment use simple rechargeable batteries but, of course,
if we really want to sell these products we have to think
about alternative energy generation,” Kirstein says.
“Integrating fabric solar cells, for example, is a very promising

Fig. 4 Use of established mass-manufacturing techniques may help keep the cost of
intelligent clothing down. (a) Fabric for the acoustic beamformer sensornet is woven on a
standard loom. (Credit: Zahi Nakad.) (b) Electronic ‘buttons’ are fitted with metal snap
fasteners that garment makers are already familiar with. (Credit: David Lehn.)

conventional soldering or adhesive techniques, and it is these

connections that cause the main point of weakness. “The
fibers themselves are quite robust so they could even be put
into a washing machine without damage,” Kirstein says. “But
the connections between the fibers and the chips tend to
break and so we have to make them mechanically resistant.”
Kirstein regards the development of interwoven electronic
textiles as a significant advance in the field of wearable
computing, though she accepts that the materials’
complexity will keep intelligent garments off the market for a
few more years. The ETH team is currently trying to integrate
as much functionality into their fabrics as possible. Textile
antennae developed at the Zürich labs will let the cloth
computers communicate with each other or the outside Fig. 5 (a) Researchers at ETH Zürich are using woven fabric with embedded Cu fibers to
world (Fig. 6). The next step forward will be the creation of produce context-aware clothing. (b) Their prototype ‘intelligent’ jacket uses the
conductive fibers to transmit data between different sensors and to measure body
conductive thread-like elongation sensors to monitor body movements. (Courtesy of Tünde Kirstein, ETH Zürich)

42 October 2003
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attacked by a hacker, for example,” says Zevin. “People don’t

want to have to upload and download intrusion detection
systems themselves. Pervasive computing should also mean
pervasive computer security, and it should also mean
pervasive standards and protocols for privacy.”
She notes that the level of security required for electronic
textile garments will vary according to their applications.
Military battle dress, medical monitoring suits, and fashion
garments, for example, could each be installed with a
different level of data protection software. Universal
Fig. 6 (a) Textile antenna developed for external communication between an item of communication and encryption standards will also be
clothing and its environment. (b) Conductive yarn embroidered onto fabric becomes a
coil that uses near field inductive coupling for communication between different pieces of
required to ensure different products work together in an
clothing. (Courtesy of Tünde Kirstein, ETH Zürich) efficient and secure manner.
Daniel Siewiorek, director of the Human-Computer
idea because you have a large surface area on the clothing, so Interaction Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, suggests
you could use that for generating energy.” that users should be allowed some input on the accessibility
of information generated by wearable devices. Using tracking
Wireless world devices, for example, raises questions about when an
Whatever the technical obstacles, researchers involved in the individual’s location should be given out and when it should
development of interactive electronic clothing appear not, he says. The sensitivity of this issue became evident
universally confident that context-aware coats and sensory earlier this year following reports that fashion giant Benetton
shirts are only a matter of time. Susan Zevin, acting director would be fitting a tracking chip to its clothes. Fears that
of the Information Technology Laboratory at the US National consumers would be monitored as they entered other shops
Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), would like to using the same scanning technology prompted a hasty
see finished garments fitted with some form of data clarification that the system was still under consideration8,9.
encryption system before they reach consumers. After all, Siewiorek has watched wearable computing devices shrink
wearing a jacket that is monitoring your every movement, in size and increase in functionality over the past decade. He
recording details about your personal well-being, or has no doubt that the technology is now sufficiently small for
pinpointing your exact location at a moment in time, adds a clothing to be made with built-in computing power. The main
whole new dimension to issues of wireless security and challenge for researchers, though, will be working out which
personal privacy. applications to address, he says. “If you’ve got all that
“The challenge, I think, for industry is to build in the capability, the question is, what do you do with it?” he says.
security and privacy before the technology is deployed, so “Whether I have this technology sewn into a button or
the user doesn’t have to worry about having his or her T-shirt hidden in my clothes is not as important as how we use it.” MT

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2. Baard, M., E-Fabrics Still Too Stiff to Wear, Wired News, 5 December 2002, www.optics.org/articles/news/8/7/1/1
www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,56708,00.html 7. Ball, P., TV on a T-shirt, Nature Science Update, 22 May 2002,
3. Ball, P., Shoes and sheets get wired, Nature Science Update, 6 December 2002, www.nature.com/nsu/020520/020520-4.html
www.nature.com/nsu/nsu_pf/021202/021202-11.html 8. Hogan, J., Fashion firm denies plan to track customers , New Scientist, 19 April
4. Eisenberg, A., For the Smart Dresser, Electric Threads That Cosset You, New 2003, pp 11
York Times, 6 February 2003, pp 7, www.nytimes.com/2003/02/06/technology 9. Yoshida, J., Benetton adopts Philips’ RFID technology for ‘smart’ labels,
/circuits/06next.html?ex=1045545602&ei=1&en=419c725550669347 EE Times, 14 March 2003, www.eetimes.com/story/OEG20030311S0028
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www.optics.org/articles/news/8/10/11/1

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