Event Report – Smart Clothing

From the Churchill Club event on the 14th May 2009

Australian swimmers were the first to use the ultra low friction swimsuits that are now common attire.  Sensors woven into clothing can communicate the heart rate of the elderly.  Remote sensors such as accelerometers and environmental monitors can be picked up for as little as $20 and integrated into Twitter with two lines of code. All this and much more has been promised for a number of years, so when will our suits have bio monitors and respond to how we feel?

Two questions were put to two experts in the area of smart clothing.  What’s happening, and where are the opportunities?

Our panel was:
Andy Gelme – Director of Geekscape
Dr Richard Helmer – Theme Leader: Advancing Human Performance,  CSIRO

Moderator
Brendan Lewis – The Churchill Club Ltd

Where are we at?
Electricity can now be run through textiles using conductive thread either sewn in, or as part of the the fabric.  This means that power sources and devices can now be directly incorporated into clothing.

Smart Clothing can sense the shape of the body at any particular time through flexible resistor strips, and where it is in space through incorporation of a GPS chip.  It can also monitor your immediate environment using remote sensors such as:

• Accelerometers – for local movement.
• Temperature – for your body temperature and the space you are within.
• Atmospheric Gas – your breath and your immediate environment.
• Radiation – How much sun or other radiation are you getting.
• Humidity – Of your skin and your environment.
• Infrared – Which can interestingly be used to non-invasively look at the colour of your blood.
• Sound – Both in audible range and outside the range.
• Skin Conductivity – Sensing how much sweat is on your body.
• Direction – Knowing which way is north or pre set direction.

Smart Clothing can also include actuators which can output light, sound, vibration or messages to other devices.  In fact the Japanese are now heavily experimenting with powered suits to augment the body’s muscles.

Smart clothing can communicate wirelessy using standard communications technologies such as Zigbee, Bluetooth and 802.11g

The remote sensors and wired thread are fairly cheap (some pieces $2-$20), allowing the “hacker community to experiment”

So what are the Issues?
The primary issue that must be asked is, “why clothing?”  The use of textiles means that any solution needs to be flexible, fashionable, comfortable, waterproof, durable and washable, the same attributes as normal clothing.

Power is a huge issue because small batteries don’t last long and voltage drop occurs across the body (and across conductive thread)  which means the physical limitations of the equipment are still controlling the design of new solutions.  However research is being conducted for the Australian Defence Forces into using body movement and ambient radiation to power smart clothing.   This could be the future.

Clothing still needs to have a removable brick (albeit small) carrying the power around.

Testing the smart clothing creates new OH&S issues and responsibilities.

What are the opportunities?
The air guitar shirt demonstrated by Dr Richard Helmer was an insight into possible uses of this technology by the Creative world.

Smart clothing ensures the sensors are automatically in contact with the skin, their position is correctly located and the wearer requires little instruction for set-up or routine use.

The main areas of focus seem to be currently around

• Sports – Data gathering (around body movement and location) for review on optimal performance.
• Healthcare - Clothing that will inform if the wearer is showing signs of organ failure or distress, clothing that will notify you if your baby has rolled over to its front.
• Hazardous Environments – Monitoring health, location and toxins in the environment
• Military – Incorporating energy generating clothing to reduce weight load of soldiers  (with flow on benefits to the trekking and camping industry)

What is industry doing and where is it going?
The Air guitar concept has been great for education and profile in the area but is not particularly profitable as yet.   It appears that professional sports is the only area in Australia where there is any current commercial level takeup, both now and in the immediate future.

The area is still very emergent, but some standards are starting to evolve so that systems and parts can be interchangeable.

Major players moving early in the industry globally include:

Smartlife
SmartLife® Technology Ltd is a UK based Medical Technology Company aiming to become a leading global provider within the field of personalised wearable monitoring systems.  The SmartLife team, have developed a novel textile based technology platform incorporating flexible integral dry sensors that allow the monitoring of vital health signs such as ECG, heart rate, EMG, respiration, tidal flow and skin temperature, to meet international clinical standards

Polar
The Finnish company Polar is the dominant player globally in wearable monitoring equipment for eltite athletes and amateur sportsmen.  In 1979 POLAR filed its first patent for wireless heart rate measurement and in 1982, launched the first ever wire-free wearable heart rate monitor, changing the way athletes trained forever. Now, over 30 years after that first moment of inspiration, POLAR provides the most comprehensive product range in the industry. From basic models that help motivate and inform beginners and regular exercisers, to providing complete training systems for world champions across numerous disciplines.  Its is now focussing on the the Smart Clothing area.

And for the techo’s the two lines of java are:

Twitter twitter = new Twitter(twitterID,twitterPassword);
Status status = twitter.updateStatus(latestStatus);

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