As a foretaste to this year's Techtextil trade fair in Frankfurt, Ghent University presents an interactive exhibition of prototypes in the field of Smart Textiles & Wearable Microsystems.
Jacket with electrical generator (Juris Blums, Riga Technical University, Technical physics institute, Riga, LVA) - Clothes with integrated generator which transforms mechanical energy of the wearer's body movement into electricity.
PROETEX – Final prototype (Carla Hertleer, Ghent University, Ghent, BE) - An advanced E-Textile system bringing together sensors, connections, transmission systems, and power management to be used in smart garments of emergency disaster personnel.
ODITH – Interactive wheelchair posture monitoring system (Riccardo Marchesi, Texe srl, Firenze, IT) - A portable posture monitoring system “ODITH” especially developed for wheelchairs. Two textile pressure analog sensors are integrated in the chair backrest cover and two in the armrest covers, allowing a continuous monitoring of the upper body and arms.
Active Belt to capture & process ECG signals (Kunal Mankodiya, Dept. of Rehabilitation Science & Tech., University of Pittsburgh, USA) - winner of SYSTEX Student Award 2010 - A wearable ECG chest belt named “Active Belt” which contains stitched textile electrodes for ECG detection and analog preprocessing circuits embedded in tiny cell-phone plugs.
Heatable Coverall (Vera De Glas/Geert Hebbrecht, Sioen, BE) - A coverall including heating elements, connection wires with energy supply through a battery.
Dance with Light - UGent TextielMobiel (Nicki Vlaemynck, University College Ghent, Ghent, BE) - A garment that can be used for playing the Sync-in-Team - social dance game. Integrated LEDs, accelerometers and a textile antenna ensure interaction between the players.
A delicate phase of matter: a collection of liquid crystal colour-change surfaces (Sara Robertson, Heriot Watt University, Galashiels, UK) - A collection of flexible colour-change surfaces that demonstrate design potential for future directions in responsive surface design.
Saturday Light Fever Super Hero (Evelyn Lebis, Swedish school of Textiles and Boras University, Boras, SW) - Saturday Light Fever is inspired by butterfly bio-mimicry and blinds the bad with brightness! A super hero costume with which the evil will be beaten through innocent appearance and dazzles with surprise effects.
Flexible Light for Health and Wellbeing (Frank van Abeelen, Philips Research, Human Interaction & Experiences, Eindhoven, NL) - A 'blanket' for treatment of neonatal jaundice. Early born babies often suffer from this condition, which is visible as yellowing of the skin and must be treated with blue light.
Every year, during the international trade fair Techtextil in Frankfurt, the latest trends in smart textiles are shown in a large exhibition area. The response of visitors and the press is enormous. As a foretaste, the Department of Textiles of Ghent University holds the Smart Textiles Salon in Belgium. Over 20 exhibitors will show the latest developments and trends from industry and research. The exhibition is now held for the second time, in the framework of the European project SYSTEX.
The STS is an English-language event reaching an international audience, as was clearly demonstrated in the last edition.
For more information
www.SmartTextilesSalon.com
Lina Rambausek
Department of Textiles
Tel. +32 (0)9 264 54 09
Lina.Rambausek@UGent.be
marketing@alchempro.com
