E-textile

There is an increasing interest in the emerging area of E-textiles, by which the idea of endowing garments and fabrics with new electronic functions is meant, in particular aimed at monitoring physiological parameters in patients [56] and in subjects exposed to particular risks or external harsh conditions [57]. 

Strain and pressure sensors and also biochemosensors for measuring characteristics of the human skin are particularly interesting for this kind of applications because they could measure a wide set of parameters such as posture, breathing activity body fluids composition, etc. in a totally nonintrusive way. This characteristic is in fact very interesting for practical applications. For instance, it would allow doctors to monitor the patient status in real time, 24 h a day additionally, it would afford a better quality of life to patients for whom they would be perceived as noninvasive monitoring systems. 

Basic specifications for this application are rather similar to those listed for the electronic skin. In addition, these systems, being in contact with (or 

At present, the first attempts to develop strain sensors on garments are being made with piezoresistive stripes deposited on the garments [58-63]. The detection is made through piezoresistive tracks running on the fabric along, for example, a sleeve or parallel to the chest in a T-shirt. In this way, the movement results in a deformation of the track and in a variation of its resistance. No spatial resolution is achievable with such a strategy that is based on the measurement of the resistance of the whole track. The employment of OFETs could allow arrays and matrices to be built, so as to enable full spatial resolution (Fig. 6.23). 

The authors acknowledge European Commission for funding the Integrated Project PROETEX and the Italian Research Ministry for funding the Project PRIN 2006 Plastic BIO-FET Sensors  

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However, the proposed device was not flexible, therefore not suitable for applications like robot skin, e-textiles, etc. 

However, the term wearable or E-textile also encompasses trivial, nonelectronics such as inks and pastes that change colour and fall under the same umbrella as the more complex electronic devices (Henry, 2009a,b IDTechEx, 2013). 

To enable the engineering of E-textiles, research in the textile sector must be focused towards the products of highly added value, development of which demands an interdisciplinary approach and collaboration of scientists across various scientific fields (Connect, 2014). Not only the end product, but the production process of the future itself has to bring technological innovations and sustainability (Parac Osterman et al., 2010) and thus form a circle in which advancements are possible whilst maintaining the balance with nature and the surroundings (Gardetti and Torres, 2013 Parac-Osterman et al., 2007). 

Sensoria Body-sensing wearable devices with integrated e-textile All the data from the jjroducts are collected in a... 

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