Smart Textiles

13th Jul 2022

Loomia Technologies has joined hands with Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA) to develop highly tactile, heated handwear that could be applicable to both commercial/recreational and military customers. Loomia's patented e-textile technology is a soft, flexible circuit technology that can be embedded into a wide variety of fabrics and...

8th Jul 2022

Researchers at MIT have invented a form-fitting fabric that can recognise the wearer’s movements and even posture. The fabrication process, which employs digital-knitting technology, enables rapid prototyping, making it possible for the smart fabric to be manufactured on a large scale. This special textile could also have application in healthcare.

9th Jun 2022

A Nanyang Technical University Singapore team has developed a stretchable, waterproof fabric that turns energy generated from body movements into electrical energy. A crucial component in the fabric is a polymer that, when pressed or squeezed, converts mechanical stress into electrical energy. Washing, folding and crumpling does not degrade its...

3rd Jun 2022

Researchers at Finland’s Aalto University’s departments of physics and design have developed a method of adhering solar cells to textiles that makes them resistant to machine-wash, and, at the same time, makes them less of an aesthetic problem. During the three-year ‘Sun-powered Textiles’ project, they also made the solar cell-infused textiles...

10th May 2022

Canadian researchers have woven ‘threads’ of Wi-Fi into fabric as a way of pushing boundaries to further understand how technology impacts lives. A textile Wi-Fi antenna has been created by weaving a conductive material directly into a tapestry fabric. It was conceived as a way to understand human relationship with home routers and the Internet.

25th Apr 2022

Researchers from Loughborough University in the UK and the University of Moratuwa in Sri Lanka have developed a scalable manufacturing technique to create wearable fabrics embedded with very small power generators known as ‘triboelectric nanogenerators’. The techniquecan turn common textile materials into energy-generating textiles using established...

20th Apr 2022

Canada’s Centennial College and its partners have received $4 million in multi-year funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to develop products for the global e-textile market, as well as to assist small and medium-sized enterprises in the transportation, food production, energy and advanced manufacturing sectors.

19th Apr 2022

Engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and collaborators at Rhode Island School of Design have designed a fabric that works like a microphone, converting sound first into mechanical vibrations, then into electrical signals. Inspired by the human ear, a new acoustic fabric converts audible sounds into electrical signals.

13th Apr 2022

A group of companies in the Italian textile industry, headed by RadiciGroup, has created a spacesuit for analogue simulation which is designed and engineered in Italy for SMO Mars mission. It was promoted and organised by Mars Planet, the Italian chapter of the Mars Society headquartered in Bergamo, under the patronage of the Italian Space Agency.