Research Critique: Sensing Garments & Smart Textiles

Sensing Garments

Athos-health-sensing-clothing

These garments are made to gather information on posture and movement of the user. The current project discussed in this essay is about upper limb kinesthetic garment (ULKG) which is aimed to aid rehabilitation process for post-stroke patients.

ULKG use electricity conductive silicon rubber and graphite smeared on the fabric, hence allowing the garments to conduct electricity to the sensors on the ULKG and the glove. No external wire or cable connected to external electrical components is needed, hence making the garment to be wearable and comfortable.

Moreover, with sensors accurately located on specific muscles and joints, ULKG is able to calculate the just-right amount of movement, hence movements made by ULKG on the limbs of the user will be natural and smooth. This will allow post-stroke patients to have natural muscle memory. And, as ULKG automatically adjusts the current, pressure and movements on the patient, no physician is needed to monitor the rehabilitation process. Rehabilitation can be carried out more conveniently anytime.

Smart Textiles

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Smart textiles are often called electronic textiles or e-textiles. These are textiles with electronic and interconnections woven into them, making them intrinsics to the fabric, hence no external component is needed for them to function.

E-textile is divided into three subgroups:

  1. passive smart textiles: only sense the environ
    ment/user using sensors.
  2. active smart textiles: sense and react to external stimuli.
  3. very smart textiles: sense, react and adapt to the c
    hanging circumstances.

Hopefully, with the development of e-textiles, our future everyday clothing can serve as intelligent personal assistants that can be brought anywhere anytime.

This essay also explains pretty detailed explanation on how to create e-textile, hence showing the plausibility of commercializing it. For e.g., basic chemistry method such as electroplating is mentioned to be able to create a smart material called treated conducive fibers.

Conclusion

Samples

The first essay has a more specific topic than the second one. The first essay talks only about sensing garment and its direct application to ULKG and the glove. In the other hand, the second essay’s focus is about the possible manufacturing process of e-textile without explaining clearly the direct application of different e-textiles.

Both essays complement each other: e-textiles, which comprise sensing garment, are feasible to be made and have potential to be commercialized because they can be applied to make clothes with high functionality in the medical, artistic, sports and any other fields.