Fabric circuits open a door to smarter clothes

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By Matthew Griffin Industrial Revolution 19th October 2016

WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF

A new development in material science opens the door for the development of more advanced Smart Clothing.

Many of today’s smart clothes, such as those from Adidas, Athos, Nike, Ralf Lauren and Under Armour rely on sensors, such as EMG sensors, woven into the fabric to communicate information back to a unit or device that can process and analyse it but now a new discovery paves the way for clothing to be integrated with more powerful “on board” computer circuits and chips which could open up new use cases – if, that is, the technology ever finds its way into a commercial application.

Academics in Hong Kong have used a computerised knitting machine to weave electrical circuits into clothing that can resist stretching, washing and even the impact of bullets. The team from the University’s Institute of Textiles and Clothing used copper coated in polyutherane to carry the current and then sewed these strands together with filaments of pre-stretched elastic yarn to create the finished garment which can then be integrated and augmented with a variety of chips and flexible circuits.

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The details of their experiment were published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A and it shows that the new fabric can tolerate a 20% deformation around 1 million times before it begins to fail. Meanwhile though – when it was tested in a domestic washing machine at 40°C, followed by tumble drying at 75°C after 30 such washing and drying cycles – 20% of samples showed some degradation in performance so there is evidently some way to go still before the prototype is production ready.

Fabric circuit demo reel, courtesy New Scientist

While the technology concept itself is novel and could indeed lead to a new proliferation of “Smart Clothing” some of the more interesting use cases for it could lie in the military sector.To demonstrate their circuits’ suitability for the military and security segment, developers Qiao Li and Xiao Ming Tao, fitted a sample under a layer of Kevlar and shot it several times with a .45 hand gun. The fabric continued to function so, as a consequence, the team believe it could be integrated into smart body armour, which could communicate when a wearer had been shot, providing the field commanders and medics with extra intel.

Matthew Griffin / About Author

Described by NASA as a "Walking Encyclopaedia of the Future" and one of the world’s most in demand keynote speakers Matthew Griffin, Founder and Futurist in Chief of the 311 Institute, a global Futures and Deep Futures advisory firm, is a multi-award winning Futurist and strategic foresight expert, author, lecturer, mentor, podcast and YouTube host.

With a distinguished career running global business units at Atos, EMC, and IBM today Matthew helps leaders and titans of industry from all over the world explore the impact of the inter sections of technology, culture, and leadership, then helps them create high performance organisations that can continuously disrupt, outpace, and outthink their competition.

15 times author of the hit series the Codex of the Future series Matthew's ability to identify, track, and explain the impacts of hundreds of emerging technologies and trends on global business, culture, and society has earned him a powerful reputation and a roster of clients that include royal households, world leaders across the G7, G20, and G77, and many of the world's most recognised and exceptional organisations including ABB, Accenture, ABN Amro, Adidas, AON, ARM, BCG, Centrica, Citi Group, Coca Cola, Deloitte, Dentons, Disney, Dow, EY, Google, KPMG, Lego, Microsoft, Legal & General, LinkedIn, Nokia, Paramount, PepsiCo, PWC, Qualcomm, RWE, Samsung, T-Mobile, UBS, Visa, WIRED, WPP and hundreds of others.

Matthew is regularly featured in the global media including the AP, BBC, Bloomberg, CNBC, Discovery, Forbes, Khaleej Times, Telegraph, TIME, ViacomCBS, WIRED, and the WSJ, and his mission is to help organisations create a fair and sustainable future whose benefits are shared by everyone irrespective of their ability, background, or circumstances.