Smart textile is a combination with textile and technology. Some of the smart textiles can monitor health and can measure movements. Technology that makes it possible and incorporate the opportunity to recycle and reuse textile fibers is smart textiles could revolutionizes lives.
Many medical conditions would benefit from continuous patient monitoring and treatment, although this is currently impractical due to the cumbersome nature of current medical equipment. Recent advancements in specialized materials and fabrication technologies offer exciting opportunities to create seamless garments as sensors and actuators for biomedical applications. Knitting fabrication, known as the intermeshing of yarns into loops (resulting in fabrics), is an ancient form of textile production widely used in the fashion industry. Knitting technology has gained a great deal of attention in the field of wearable electronics and could become a widespread method of construction for smart textiles in the future.
A group of designers, scientists and doctors at Drexel University to produce new biomedical textiles, and the resulting smart clothes are not only fashionably functional, but could also be life savers.
They are integrating RFID technology into their “belly bands” for women with high-risk pregnancies. The band continuously tracks data and alerts the doctor’s office via the Internet should the woman start contractions. A smaller version is being created for babies at risk for sleep apnea by the support from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Its again created an intersection of engineering, medicine and design, these examples of new human-centered service technology show vast potential to improve healthcare.Textile innovations improve people’s everyday lives and benefit the industry, the health care sector and the environment.
National Science Foundation has invested approximately $34 million US dollar in this project at the last three years, associate innovative new partnership projects to create service systems that are smart and human-centric.
