What Are E-Textiles?

Characteristics of E-textiles

E-textiles possess the flexibility of fabric. It can be tailored to fit human bodies like a shirt or dress, effectively allowing a person to wear sensing devices, computational nodes and mini-actuators. It can also be conformed to cover objects or simply be part of a house decoration

E-textile is characterized by many pieces of processors, sensors and actuators on a single piece of garment, spread out over a large surface area in a regular fashion and connected together by interconnects. The process of manufacturing e-textile will probably be similar to weaving patterns into textiles. This will allow for low cost, economical production of the textile.

E-textiles as Imaging Array

E-textile is an emerging technology, which has potential applications in many areas, from military to consumer markets.

In this project, we are looking at a specific application of e-textile, i.e. ultra-sound imaging array. The concept of e-textile imaging array is to embed several ultra-sound sensors and actuators, in a regular fashion, into the fabric. From the data collected from the sensor nodes, it is possible to construct an image of the object or environment in front of the array.