Smart textiles: Wearable electronic systems

Protection and aesthetics are the two common dimensions or attributes typically associated with textiles as clothing. However with the rapidly changing needs of today's consumers, a third dimension is emerging - that of intelligence-that is being integrated into fabrics to produce interactive textiles, or i-textiles. This new class of wereable electronic systems is being designed to meet new and innovative applications in the military, public safety, healthcare, space exploration, sports, and consumer fitness fields. In this article, the concept of i-textiles is presented, along with the building blocks for its realization. This is followed by an overview of the design and development of the Smart Shirt, an intelligent garment that provides an extremely versatile framework for the incorporation of sensing monitoring and information-processing devices. The key applications of the Smart Shirt technology and their impact in transforming healthcare are discussed. Finally the need to advance this paradigm and identify opportunities to transform passive textiles into the new generation of interactive, or smart textiles is discussed.