Design and Manufacture of Textile-Based Sensors

The textile and clothing industry in Europe has intensively changed in relocation of production facilities to low-wage countries. To preserve the leading role in global markets, the European activities are focused more on creative fashion design, quality and innovation. The textile and clothing industry is split into clothing (46%), home and interior (32%) and the technical sector (22%) and still represents the major industrial fields. In all three sectors are new applications with functionalized textiles, called ‘smart textiles’. Taking a look at our modern environment, it can be seen that people carry more electronic supplements than ever. Clothing with adapted electronics, such as MP3 players and cameras, is already marketed. Adapting rigid electronic components to soft and flexible textiles is not attractive for the end user. So textile-based control panels are customised regarding wearability and comfortability. Because textiles are made of fibres, yarns or two- or three-dimensional structures, the sensor systems should be designed as a part of them accordingly. The development of a textile sensor and its interpretation of a specific application have been associated with many investigations into combinations of different conductive materials, which are lengthy and costly research processes. Knowledge has already been generated on textile sensors, which now require an appropriate classification and structure. To reduce the gap between research and industry knowledge in smart textiles, a classified catalogue, which allows a direct selection of textile-based sensor modules, and a methodical approach, the smart 7-step tool for developing textile-based sensors in different application fields, have been developed.