Smart textiles system

Many researchers are working in the direction of obtaining a flexible textile-based electrochemical capacitor for emerging new applications as in a smart textile system. Just like in batteries, the direction is toward making flexible supercapacitors, on either fibers, yams, or fabrics [7,14—17]. 

As can be intuitively understood, the reason behind the use of textile materials in antennas lies in the application for which they are intended, being smart textile systems and body-centric communication. 

In the technical report Textiles and textile products—smart textiles—definitions, categorisation, applications and standardization needs that has been drawn up by Technical Committee CEN/TC 248, smart textile materials are defined as fiuictional textile material, which interacts actively with its environment, i.e., it responds or adapts to changes in the environment. More specifically, a smart textile system is defined as a textile system which exhibits an intended and exploitable response as a reaction either to changes in its surroundings/environment or to an external signal/input. As can be seen from the definition, the sensing capability is one of the enabling features of smart textiles. 

Comfort is very important in textiles because stresses lead to increased fatigue. The potential of smart textiles is to measure a number of body parameters such as skin temperature, humidity and conductivity and show the level of comfort through the textile sensors. To keep the comfort of textiles, adequate actuators are needed that can heat, cool, insulate, ventilate and regulate moisture. The use of the smart system should not require any additional effort. The weight of a smart textile system should not reduce operation time of the rescue worker. 

Other key issues for the design of a smart textile system are [57] ... 

A wearable smart textile system basically comprises following components [36] ... 

McAdams E.T., McLaughlin J, Anderson J McC., Wearable and implantable monitoring systems 10 years experience at University of Ulster Proc. Wearable Electronic and Smart Textiles Confi, Leeds, UK, 2004. 

Smart textiles for medicine and healthcare materials systems and applications (ISBN-13 978-1-84569-027-4 ISBN-10 1-84569-027-3)... 

Smart textiles are also available as consumer sportswear, which can monitor parameters such as heart rate and running statistics linking wirelessly to electronic devices such as iPhones, as with the Nike + products or smart phone android apps, as with the Adidas miCoach system. 

Kirstein, T., Lawrence, M., Troster, G., 2003. Functional electrical stimulation (FES) with smart textile electrodes. In International Workshop on a New Generation Of Wearable Systems for E-health, Pisa, Italy. 

Smart Textiles for Medicine and Healthcare Materiab, Systems and Applications (ISBN 978-1-84569-293-3)... 

Nierstrasz, V.A., 2007. Textile-based drag release systems. In Van Langenhove, L. (Ed.), Smart Textiles for Medicine and Healthcare, Materials, System and Applications. Woodhead Publishing Limited, Cambridge, pp. 50—73. 

Wienforth F, Landrock A, Schindler C, Siegert J and Kirch W (2007), Smart textiles A new drug dehvery system for symptomatic treatment of a common cold , / CZm Pharmacol, 47(5), 653-658. DOI 10.1177/0091270007299927. Bomeman AF (2002), A comparison of poly(L-lactic acid) and poly(D,L-lac-tide co-glycohde) biodegradable fibers as drug delivery devices , MS thesis,The University of Texas, Arhngton. 

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