Government-funded research into energy harvesting clothing will begin in the UK in October 2010.
A research team at the University of Southampton will work on the smart textile technology over the next five years. The project will be given over £900,000 over the course of the project by the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
The research is focused on applying an active film of conductive ink to textiles, to harvest energy. The smart textiles could be used to power health monitoring sensors in clothing, or portable electronics carried by the wearer, says textile news website Fibre2fashion.
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Fibre2fashion report
Article from the textile trade news website on Southampton’s research into smart textiles
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Subscribe to +Plastic Electronics magazine
Subscribe to +Plastic Electronics magazine, published six times a year, for just £100/€110/$160. Find out more here
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Smart textiles: do they have mainstream appeal?
Can smart textiles ultimately appeal to the mainstream though? And how will they get into the consciousness of the average consumer? +Plastic Electronics spoke to smart textile developers and designers using innovative materials to find out more
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Truly smart textiles
Kunigunde Cherenack, senior research fellow at the ETH Wearable Computing Lab, who is working on the TecInTex smart textile project, explains how electronic textile concepts are becoming a reality
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