Textile display

Harlin, A., Makinen, M., Vuorivirta, A., 2003. Development of polymeric optical fibre fabrics as illumination elements and textile displays. Autex Research Journal 3 (1). 

Textile electronics is another exciting area of apphcation. Fibrous diodes and transistors have already been developed in different laboratories. Flexible sensors and actuators (textile displays, heating fabrics) will in the future be part of our clothes, car interiors and home textiles. Therefore, flexible textile-based electronic circuits will be fully integrated to fabrics and connected to databases and servers making possible new ways to utilize clothing and other textiles. 

Electrophoretic devices can be fixed on a textile substrate to form an electrophoretic textile display. Flexible electrodes have to be chosen in order to obtain a flexible device. A rollable prototype made on a polyethylene fabric was realized by E Ink in 2011 [33]. 

The independent control of different zones of a photochromic textile allows the creation of an entire light-controlled display. This idea was developed by the Swedish Interactive Institute. A UV lamp illuminates different zones of a photochromic fabric independently, creating dynamic patterns [46]. However, the photochromic colour change is slow and limits the dynamism of the textile display. 

Fig. 24.17 presents the colours obtained with polydithieno(3,2-b 2 -3 -d)thiophene (pDTT) and this electrolyte, impregnating a cotton spacer fabric. The flexible structure switches from green at the neutral, oxidized state to red at the doped, reduced state [78]. Acceptable lifetime results are obtained for up to several hundreds of cycles. This structure can be adapted in order to realize an electrochromic textile display. 

Several technologies able to be used for the development of communicative textile devices have been presented. Some of them are already used for the development of textile displays. Their emission of reflective characteristics allow their use for different types of applications. Emissive devices such as luminescent stmctures or optical fibres are preferred for high-visibility outfits for personal safety, for art and fashion design or for advertising events. Reflective devices offer a softer, more discreet colour change, which could preferentially be used for everyday applications such as communicative clothes, home furnishings or fashion. 

Hallnas L, Mehn L, Redstrom J. Textile displays using textiles to investigate computational technology as design material. In NordiCHI 02 Second Nordic Conference on Human-computer Interaction 2002 p. 157—166. 

Kelly FM, et al. Polyanihne apphcation as solid state electrochromic in a flexible textile display. Displays 2013 34(1) 1—7. 

Mauriello M, Gubbels M, Froehlich L Social fabric fitness the design and evaluation of wearable e-textile displays to support gronp nmning. [Toronto]. 

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