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Manufacturers will soon launch an exciting collection of "intelligent" clothes made from "smart" fabrics. Among these wireless, washable garments are a bikini with an integrated audio player, a shirt with its own mobile phone, a ski jacket that warns its wearer of hazards and a child's T-shirt with a built-in global positioning satellite (GPS) system.
After two years of research and development at British laboratories run by consumer electronics manufacturer Philips, a team of experts has unveiled an interesting range of "intelligent" products. The secret? Woven, knitted and printed fabrics are blended with new conductive materials to add "intelligence" to garments.
Soft to the touch, the new products are powered by small, removable nine-volt batteries. For some applications, experts from the Philips team are working on the use of body heat to generate electricity.
One of the inventions is a denim jacket that features a collar with flexible stereo speakers. Wear the collar down and people close to you hear music. When the collar is turned up, however, only the wearer can listen to it. The music is transmitted by a tiny detachable music player, which requires no moving parts. Similarly, an antenna woven into the jacket's material can receive phone calls or download music from the Internet to the player.
Another prototype is a child's "bugsuit" that combines a GPS system and a digital camera woven into the fabric with an electronic game panel on the sleeve. The GPS system allows parents to track a child's whereabouts while the camera shows what the child is doing.
Philips scientists have already developed a life-saving ski jacket equipped with an electronic system. When a built-in thermometer detects a dramatic fall in the skier's body temperature, the fabric will instantly heat up. Also integrated into the jacket is a GPS system for locating the skier. On the back of his jacket is a proximity sensor that alerts the wearer when other skiers come too close to him or her.
Using a material that conducts electronic signals, the scientists have also devised a fabric telephone keypad that drops down from a shirt's cuff or a jacket's pocket. They are now working on another project to produce a mobile phone that can be incorporated into a jacket's button.
For golfers and tennis players eager to study their arm swing, Philips has come up with an "intelligent" tracksuit's top, which is fitted with conductive fabric strips. The top measures electrical resistance when the fabric is stretched and the data is transmitted to a computer to create a simulation of the user's movement.
"In another 10 years, it will be commonplace for clothes to contain electronics," says Philips project team leader David Eves. "What we are doing is making portable devices wearable. Tests conducted by us have shown that even in pouring rain there is no risk of an electric shock."
by special correspondent Ken Clark
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