TEXTILES.ORG
Liquid electronics: It’s not an oxymoron
March 25th, 2024
The words “liquid” and “electronics” are not, in general, words you want to see together. I have pictures in my head of warnings having to do with using an electric hair dryer in the bathtub. That may get a laugh today, but who among us can explain how wearables crafted from e-textiles can be safe […]
Tackling the tough challenges in e-textiles
March 25th, 2024
A textile sensor patch with a self-sufficient energy supply developed by the Technische Universitat Dresden. Photo: Marie O’Mahony. Can printed electronics (PE) and flexible hybrid electronics (FHE) offer e-textiles direction that overcomes the design, manufacturing and sustainability challenges facing the industry? The annual conference and trade show LOPEC (Large-area, Organic & Printed Electronics Convention) was recently […]
The long road to smart fabric standards
December 11th, 2023
Loomia makes soft, flexible circuit technology to be incorporated into a variety of textile end products. Photo: Loomia. “Smart textiles” that utilize specialized polymers, chemical additives or electronics to react with their environment are changing textile technology in the 21st century. E-textiles or “wearables” have been particularly promising due to their ability to monitor and communicate […]
Taking on the wearables challenges
November 13th, 2023
AFFOA showed a newly developed material for smart products in their booth on the show floor at Advanced Textiles Expo in Orlando. It describes the material as a “flexible, roll-to-roll, inkjet manufacturable, RF metamaterial for wearables.” Photo: Janet Preus. The Emerging Technologies Conference, part of the Advanced Textiles Association’s annual Expo, revealed the diversity in […]
Scientists devise a sensing sweater for industrial robots
June 12th, 2023
Photo: Provided by the researchers, Carnegie Mellon University. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have designed a smart sweater for a robot that can immediately stop moving if it accidentally makes contact with an adjacent human worker. To keep from accidentally hurting their human coworkers, many industrial robots have sensors that detect physical contact with people or other […]
Smart Fabrics Summit calls for proposals
November 28th, 2022
The 2023 Smart Fabrics Summit is set to take place April 11–12, 2023, at North Carolina State University (NC State), Raleigh, N.C. The two-day event, sponsored by the Advanced Textiles Association and the Wilson College of Textiles, NC State, will feature educational sessions, product showcases, tours of the college’s facilities, and networking opportunities. Industry participants […]
Commercialization progress
November 14th, 2022
Detail of Stratasys collaboration with designers threeASFOUR and Travis Fitch for their Chro-Morpho Collection (2019). The optical effect of the print is lenticular, mimicking the Morpho butterfly in the changing of color triggered by movement and shifting light. Photo: Marie O’Mahony. At the Advanced Textiles Conference in October in Charlotte, N.C., Anil Kircalianli, head of […]
Tomorrow’s textiles
September 12th, 2022
An example use of the fiber-based microelectronics integrated into a New Balance running shoe for safety applications and unique data transmission. Photo: AFFOA Historical branding of textiles has led the general population to think that textiles are anything but advanced. As anyone in the textile industry can appreciate, textiles are not simple or basic, but […]
What to know about e-textile standards
August 22nd, 2022
By incorporating a type of plastic yarn and using heat to slightly melt it (thermoforming), MIT researchers were able to greatly improve the precision of pressure sensors woven into multilayered knit textiles, which they call 3DKnITS. Photo: Irmandy Wicaksono/ MIT As the e-textiles industry continues to grow, it will be essential that there are consensus-based […]
Major support for smart textile R&D announced
June 27th, 2022
Supercapacitor yarns integrated in a fabric for powering LEDs. North Carolina State University researchers have found a way to prevent electrical malfunctions in yarns designed to store electrical energy. Photo: Nanfei He. Government contracts, historically, have been a major source of funding for research and development in the advanced textiles world. An example of this […]