Author: ntueyarns

A team from the ATRG, including Dr Hughes-Riley and Dr Rahemtulla (pictured), presented at the AMC Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) conference in Honolulu earlier this month. The laboratory demonstration presented focused on electronic textiles related to health, wellbeing, and protective applications. Textiles on display included an acoustic sensing hat, temperature sensing sock, motion sensing over-sock, textile solar panel, and glove that is capable of providing haptic feedback. The demonstrators are all outcomes from the ‘Production engineering research for the manufacture of novel electronically functional yarns for multifunctional smart textiles’ project and showcase the improvements made to the technology made over the project’s duration. The demonstration also included a video of the manufacturing process developed. For more information an extended abstract about the demonstration (including a video) is available here.

The Advanced Textiles Research Group are presenting a Laboratory Demonstration at the AMC Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI) in Hawaii (USA) next week. The group will be presenting a series of electronic textiles related to health, wellbeing, and protective applications. The demonstration includes all new textiles produced specifically for the conference incorporating all of the recent improvements made to both the E-yarn technology and supporting hardware. Prototypes on display will include a temperature sensing sock, fall and near-fall detecting over-sock, and an acoustic sensing hat. If you are attending CHI please come and visit us. A preview of our demonstration is available here.

The ATRG have published a new research article where textile properties key to comfort have been evaluated for different types of electronic textiles. The article ‘Quantification of Fundamental Textile Properties of Electronic Textiles Fabricated Using Different Techniques’ characterised drape, liquid moisture transfer, heat transfer, and air permeability of three E-textile types, including E-textiles created using E-yarns. The work was conducted in collaboration with the University of Manchester. The article was published in the journal Textiles and is available here.

Last week members of the ATRG team attended the Future Textiles 2023 conference in Bristol (UK), which covered a range of textile related topics including electronic textiles, technical textiles, and sustainable textile manufacturing. Kalana Marasinghe (pictured above) presented a poster on the ‘Design approach to an automated electronic yarn manufacturing system‘, which is directly linked to his work designing and engineering the new automated soldering system for the ‘Production engineering research for the manufacture of novel electronically functional yarns for multifunctional smart textiles‘ project. Theo Hughes-Riley (pictured below) gave an invited talk on ‘Recent advances in the automated production of electronic yarns‘ which gave a more holistic overview of the recent developments on the project.

Dr Hughes-Riley was recently invited to speak at the 7th World Congress of Smart Materials in Sapporo (Japan). He presented on ‘Electronically Functional Yarns (E-yarns) for smart textiles’ where he detailed some of the recent develops made in the manufacturing of electronic yarns. His talk also included information about some recent E-yarn demonstrators developed by the group.

Dr Hughes-Riley recently spoke at the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) at their headquarters in Savoy Place, London. He was invited by the IET Central London Local Network to present as part of their ‘Lunch and Lecture’ series of events. His lecture, ‘Electronics embedded within textiles and clothing’ covered current work and developments in the area of electronic yarns, and the strides made towards manufacturing E-yarns at scale. The IET Lunch and Lecture events are held monthly, and details of future events are available on their website.

Members of the ATRG team recently visiting colleagues in Manchester. We were first hosted by the Northwest Composites Centre at the University of Manchester (picture above, with Dr Anura Fernando of the Unviersity of Manchester). We then visited both the Manchester School of Art and Manchester Fashion Institute at Manchester Metropolitan University (picture below, with Kate Egan and Aaron Zidichouski of Manchester Metropolitan University).

In collaboration with other colleagues at Nottingham Trent University and the University of Nottingham, the ATRG have published a new research article ‘Classifying gait alterations using an instrumented smart sock and deep learning’. The article describes the measurement of gait using two sock that incorporate a series of three E-yarns embedded with accelerometers each. Machine learning was then used to identify gait patterns linked to different movement disorders. Such a sock may prove to be useful for clinicians to monitor gait pattern alterations remotely during gait rehabilitation. The article was published in the IEEE Sensors Journal and is available here.

Members of the ATRG recently attended E-Textiles 2022 (4th International Conference on the Challenges, Opportunities, Innovations and Applications in Electronic Textiles), where the ATRG had an exhibition stand disseminating work from the project. The conference was held in Nottingham this year. Members of the ATRG team were involved in the local organising committee including Dr Arash Shahidi (pictured), Kalana Marasinghe, and Dr Theo Hughes-Riley (who was the conference chair). More details on the conference can be found on the official website.

Dr Hughes-Riley was recently in Perugia (Italy) as he was invited to speak at the 9th Forum on New Materials, which was part of CIMTEC 2022. He presented on ‘Energy harvesting and storage with electronic textiles’, with his presentation focussing on recent developments by the ATRG into the development of woven textile solar panels.