Sensorized garments

Fig. 6.23. Examples of sensorized garments for recording body signals [63]. Copyright 2005 IEEE...

These sensor garments offer potential aids to physiotherapists and their patients. At present, therapists monitor and regulate exercises performed by patients during therapy sessions and encourage patients to continue self-exercise programmes. 

A small electronic device, called SEW (Figure 12.6), is designed to acquire, process, store, and transmit data collected from the sensorized garment. It became small and light enough to be hidden in the pocket of the garment. Replacing conventional wires, USB cables or Bluetooth transmitted data to a desktop computer for analysis (Smartex, 2012). 

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). 

Tamper-resistant, self-powered, smart nanotags covert sensors sensors in consumer goods, dual-purpose sunscreen, sunglasses, garments that change color and/or release antidote... 

In conclusion, and bearing market reports and trend analyses in mind, textile-based sensor systems are and wUl remain promising, providing a lot of area and freedom for integrating new features into our garments and the textiles surrounding us. 

There are two main approaches in smart garments for monitoring biomechanics. One area is the use of inertial sensors together with advanced algorithms, the other area is the development of textile-based sensors (De Rossi and Veltink, 2010). 

Gerhard Troster s group, in ETH, Zurich, have also developed a prototype garment that can recognise upper body postures using textile strain sensors. A strain-sensitive fibre was made using a mixture of a thermoplastic elastomer and carbon black particles. 

In addition to the sensors, other electronic elements are necessary for pregnancy monitoring. These include low-power amplifiers, processing units, and radios to transmit the data to a personal device. Nowadays, these are stiU hard elements soldered to printed circuit boards (PCBs), which can be sewn into the garment. An example is the Lilypad Arduino (Arduino, 2007), which is a microcontroller board designed especially for use with wearables. The board connection pins are holes that can be sewn... 

Description The wearable sensors should be contained in a garment. Such garment should be 1. Unnoticeable to other people 2. Easy to combine with other clothes 3. Natural to wear (i.e., a shirt or a belt) 4. Soft 5. Elastic to conform to and grow with the belly 6. Not warm or sweaty 7. Not sticky 8. Not heavy 9. Understandable and easy to use ... 

Lommen, A.H.J.G., 2010. Tight-fitting garment including a sensor for measuring length and/or shape. US 7817095 B2. 

That future developments in sports garments involve the integration of sensors and actuators, enabling monitoring of the athlete and selective body cooling... 

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