Textile Sensors & Actuators

21st June 2004
Dana Centre, Science Museum London
Wellcome Wolfson Building, 165 Queen’s Gate, London, SW7 5HE

The aim of this workshop is to formulate research and development proposals in textile sensors & actuators for various applications that can be put forward to the DTI’s Technology Programme or the EPSRC for funding. The intention is to bring together a multi-disciplinary group of people spanning design, fashion, textiles, through to electronics, computing & material science, & facilitate across these communities. The development programmes will focus on two generic groups of textiles, namely clothing & interiors. The workshop will examine the applications for sensors and actuators, providing an overview of what needs to be sensed & actuated. A broad scan of conductive polymers (a prime candidate for delivering sensing and actuation at a textile scale) & fabrication processes will also be presented, which will be followed by a brainstorm. This workshop is sponsored by the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI).

9:30-10:00AM | Coffee/tea & Registration

10:00-10:05AM | Presentations d.Studio
Healthcare | Saeed Zahedi, PDD, UK
Clothing/leisure/sport | Kim Blair, Centre for Sports Innovation, MIT, USA
The Environment, Built | Duncan Wilson, Arup, UK
Automotive | Sonja Herman, consultant to BMW, Germany

11:15-11:45AM | Break

11:45-12:45AM | Presentations from materials sectors
Textile sensors and actuators currently available | Paul Gough, Philips Research, UK
Polymer sensors, Electrically activated, Electroactive actuators | Geoffrey Mitchell, University of Reading, UK
Thermally activated Shape memory alloys & polymers | George Stylios, Heriot Watt University, UK

12:45-1:30PM | Presentations from fabrication sector
Direct writing | Brian Derby, UMIST, UK
Nano fabrication | Michael Pitkethly, QinetiQ, UK
Fibre science | Robert Mather, Heriot Watt University, UK

1:30-2:15PM | Lunch

2:15-4:00PM | Facilitated brainstorm session – Define future research activity d.Studio & d.Study
Introduced and facilitated by Michael Metelits, Nothing Special consultancy
Participants can choose to work in one of four multi-disciplinary groups. Each group will be asked to produce two multi-disciplinary research proposal frameworks, by mapping application ideas with technological capabilities, & design & development process for materials and applications. Participants can choose to work in the group that interests them

4:00-4:30PM | Break

4:30-5:30PM | Group presentations d.Studio
A lead person from each group will present the ideas, which can be developed further outside of the workshop, with a view to putting them forward to the DTI’s new Technology Programme or to the EPSRC for funding

Format. The first part of the workshop comprised presentations from applications, materials and fabrication sectors. The session on applications was divided into two parts, The Body and The Environment. Presentations on The Body were given by Saeed Zahedi of PDD (who is now with Chas A. Blatchford), from the Healthcare Perspective, and by Dr. Kim Blair of the Centre for Sports Innovation, MIT, USA from the Leisure/Sports Clothing Perspective. Presentations on The Environment were given by Dr. Duncan Wilson of Arup, from a Built Environment Perspective, and Dr. Sonja Herman, a consultant to BMW, Germany from the Automotive Perspective.

The session on materials was comprised of presentations on: Textile Sensors and Actuators in the Public Domain by Paul Gough, Philips Research; Polymer Sensors by Prof Pankaj Vadgama, Queen Mary University of London; and Polymer Actuators (electrically activated electroactive actuators) by Prof Geoffrey Mitchell, University of Reading, and (thermally activated shape memory alloys and polymers) by Prof George Stylios, Heriot Watt University. The session on fabrication was comprised of a presentation on direct writing by Prof Brian Derby, University of Manchester; a presentation on Nano-Fabrication by Dr. Michael Pitkethly, QinetiQ (who is now with Cenamps); and a presentation on Fibre Science byDr. Robert Mather, Heriot Watt University.

A facilitated brainstorm session in order to define future research activity formed the second part of workshop. Michael Metelits of Nothing Special consultancy facilitated this session. During the brainstorm participants worked in four multi-disciplinary groups. Each group was asked to produce two research proposal frameworks by mapping application ideas with technological capabilities, and design and development processes for materials and applications. The four groups were ‘healthcare/medical’, e.g., specialist healthcare/medical clothing, mainstream monitoring/wellbeing clothing; ‘sports/clothing’, e.g., sports/performance wear, leisurewear, workwear, children’s wear (learning), gaming clothing, mainstream clothing and high-end fashion; ‘interior/environment’, e.g., intelligent buildings/interiors for office/home/retail/hospital/airport, furniture; and ‘automotive environment’, e.g., car/plane seats and interiors. During the brainstorm sessions a reverse engineering development approach was taken that is user/application-driven, which was comprised of the following steps: Framing need — sensing and actuation parameters — application design — materials design and development (including disposal) and expertise required. The groups looked at signals to sensed such as physiological signals, as well as types of actuation, such as shape and colour change. Short, mid, and long-term technology solutions revealed that fabricating active polymers onto textiles would require processes such as direct writing, nanotechnology, and fibre-forming using modified extrusion processes. The groups also looked at other considerations such as processing capability between sensors and actuators, and wireless communication technologies between products and mainframe computer, and building-in disposal/recycle processes.

Group presentations rounded off the day where a lead person from each group presented the ideas. It was intended that the lead person would form a project steering group for bid proposal preparation, with a view to putting them forward to the DTI’s Technology Programme or to the EPSRC for funding.

Attendees
Advanced materials – QinetiQ
Affective computing – Imperial College
Automotive – Consultant to BMW
Biomechanics – Queen Mary University London
Biomimetics, University of Reading
Built Environment Design – Bartlett, UCL; CSM; Foster and Partners; ARUP
Civil engineering – Arup Research+Development; University of Newcastle
Electronic textiles – Eleksen; University of Leeds
Materials – University of Manchester (UMIST); Queen Mary of University of London
Materials joining – TWI
Media – Piranet, International Newsletters
Medical product design – PDD
Molecular electronics – Kodak
Nanomaterials – QinetiQ
Product development – Carbonate; Centre for Sports Innovation, MIT
Psychology and HCI – HP Labs
Sports – UK Sport Institute; Center for Sports Innovation, MIT
Technical textiles – Heriot Watt University; North West TexNet; TechniTex
Telecommunications – BT
Textiles/fashion and sustainability – UAL: CSM, LCF; Heriot Watt University
Wearable computers – University of Bristol
Wearable electronics – Philips Research

Reports
Workshop outcome
Project ideas