Multidisciplinary Know-How for Smart Textiles Developers

Smart-textiles developers draw on diverse fields of knowledge to produce unique materials with enhanced properties and vast potential. Several disciplines outside the traditional textile area are involved in the construction of these smart textiles, and each individual field has its own language, specific terms and approaches. The editor and contributors provide a filtered knowledge of these areas of expertise, explaining key expressions and demonstrating their relevance to the smart-textiles field.

Following an introduction to the new enabling technologies, commercialization and market trends that make up the future of smart-textiles development, part one reviews materials employed in the production of smart textiles. Chapters discuss the types and processing of electro-conductive and semiconducting materials, optical fibers for smart photonic textiles, conductive nanofibers and nanocoatings, polymer-based resistive sensors, and soft capacitance fibers for touch-sensitive smart textiles. Part two investigates such technologies as the embedding of electronic functions, the integration of thin-film electronics, and the development of organic and large-area electronic (OLAE) technologies for smart textiles as well as joining technologies, kinetic, thermoelectric and solar energy harvesting technologies, and signal processing technologies for activity-aware smart textiles. Finally, product development and applications are the focus of part three, which investigates strategies for technology management, innovation and improved sustainability, before the book concludes by exploring medical, automotive and architectural applications of smart textiles.

Tunde Kirstein is an editor and journalist with a background in science and technology. She is former Senior Researcher at the Wearable Computing Lab and PR Manager of ETH Zurich, Switzerland and helped build the research department at the Swiss Textile College. Currently Dr. Kirstein is editor-in-chief of the magazine "Sulzer Technical Review".