Wearable electronics

Anderson, K., Seyam, A.M., The road to true wearable electronics Proc. TI 82nd World Conference , The Textile Institute, Cairo, Egypt, March 2002. 

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. 

Wearable technology consists of wearable electronics, a term that mainly includes simple and more complex electronic devices and their embedding within textile structures. A good example of the popularity of the research subject is the current Qualcomm Tricorder X-Prize competition for the best portable, wireless device that monitors and diagnoses health conditions (XPRIZE, 2014). Undoubtedly, as the aim is that the device monitors such elements as blood pressure, respiratory rate, and temperature, some of the sensors of the device will come in the form of textile-embedded electronics. 

In terms of market opportunities, and referring to both the application method and the textile as a substrate, the need for functional prints and coatings that enable the development of smart textiles and wearable electronics will be rising and will move from 30% predominantiy printed and 6% on nonrigid substrates to 45% predominantly printed and 33% on nonrigid substrates by 2022 (Ghaffarzadeh, 2013). 

Zhang, D., Miao, M., Niu, H., Wei, Z., 2014. Core-spun carbon nano tube yarn supercapacitors for wearable electronic textiles. ACS Nano 8,4571-4579. 

Stretchability has been perceived as a useful characteristic of next-generation electronics. Unlike conventional devices, stretchable electronics can adapt arbitrary and movable surfaces, thus extending their applications in smart-phones and wearable electronic textiles (Kim et al, 2010 Yu et al., 2011a). The largest challenge of stretchable PLECs resides in transparent electrode that requires to be highly conductive and stretchable. ITO is a... 

Flexible electrochromic devices (ECDs) are becoming increasing important for their promising applications in many areas, such as the portable and wearable electronic devices, including smart windows, functional supercapacitors, and flexible displays. Typically, an ECD consists of four parts of substrate, conductive electrode, electrochromic material, and electrolyte. Enormous efforts have been made to improve the flexibility of ECDs including utilizing flexible polymer substrates and conductive materials. 

H.L, Choi, I.H., Hong, W.H., Ko, I.M., Lee, S.H., Choa, S.H., Ko, S.H., 2014. Flexible supercapacitor fabrication by room temperature rapid laser processing of roU-to-roU printed metal nanoparticle ink for wearable electronics application. ]. Power Sources 246,562-568. 

Ropert, A., 2013. Wearable electronics 2.0, presentation. In Session Smart Textiles - From Research to Products, Avantex Symposium, Frankfurt, Germany, 11.06.2013. 

To address some of the comfort concerns, the industry is driven to always strive for smaller, lighter sensor systems, with suitable power supplies and reliable connectivity. In addition to the technical advances in wearable electronics, the last few years have witnessed increased collaboration between designers and engineers, leading to improvement in smart clothing designs from a wearability perspective. 

Hertleer, C., Grabowska, M., Van Langenhove, L., Catrysse, M., Hermans, B., Phiers, R., Kalmar, A., Van Egmond, H., Matthys, D., 2004. Towards a smart suit. In Wearable Electronic and Smart Textiles, 11th June, Leeds, UK. 

Recently, solid-state or quasi-solid-state electrolytes have received increasing attention since they can greatly promote the development of ESs for portable electronics, wearable electronics, printable electronics, microelectronics, and especially flexible electronic devices. 

Meng, Y. N., Y. Zhao, C. G. Hu et al. 2013. All-graphene core-sheath microfibers for all-solid-state, stretchable fibriform supercapacitors and wearable electronic textiles. Advanced Materials 25 2326-2331. 

Kou, L., T. Q. Huang, B. N. Zheng et al. 2014. Coaxial wet-spun yarn supercapacitors for high-energy density and safe wearable electronics. Nature Communications 5 3754. 

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