With rapid advancements in wearable technology and the increasing sophistication of the data they transmit, the need for a way to connect these devices seamlessly and efficiently has become more important — especially for those who use more than one gadget at once.
National University of Singapore researchers cited in NUS News and in Nature Electronics say “smart” clothes they’ve innovated can turn their wearer into a “pseudo-human circuit board”, effectively enhancing connectivity between one’s wearable devices.
Headed by Assistant Professor John Ho from the NUS Institute for Health Innovation & Technology, the research team revealed a “smart” textile that can conduct radio-waves like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi on the surface of clothing.
Described as a “meta-material”, the grey conductive textile is said to create a “wireless body sensor network” that allows devices to transmit data with a signal that is a thousand times stronger than that of conventional technologies.
Bluetooth and Wi-Fi radio-waves — which almost all body sensors use to connect to smartphones and other wearable electronics — typically radiate outwards in all directions when emitted, resulting in most of the energy being lost to the surroundings.
The result: a drastic reduction in efficiency of the wearable device as much of its battery life is consumed from just attempting to establish a connection with another gadget.
With this problem in mind, Assistant Professor Ho and his team engineered the specially-patterned textile to confine signals between sensors closer to the body instead of letting them spread away into surrounding space, allowing for a boost in connection strength.
The material — made from stainless steel fibers — comes in the form of comb-shaped strips that are attached to the outer surface of clothing by embroidery or fabric adhesive, while the inner side has unpatterned conductor strips.
Research fellows Dr Ng Kian Ann and Dr. Lee Pui Mun told Business Insider that the outer strips act like tracks for “surface waves” to “glide” wirelessly around the body, whereas the ones underneath serve an “earthing” function which prevents the signal from being radiated in the direction towards the wearer’s body.
As such, more energy from the signal between devices is localized to the body rather than radiating in all directions, allowing electronics worn in close proximity to these strips to use much less power than usual and be able to detect much weaker signals.
Alternatively, the meta-material textiles can also “boost the received signal by 1,000 times which could give you dramatically high data rates for the same power” he added.
And if you’re wondering whether the radio-waves could pose any health threats to the wearer, Assistant Professor Ho said the risks are very minimal and are less significant than holding a smartphone near one’s body for a prolonged period of time.
Having “smart” clothes also means that there is no need to make modifications to any of the user’s electronics, as the meta-material is able to function with any existing wireless device that is in the same designed frequency band.
And apparently, the boosted signal between devices is so strong that it is possible to wirelessly transmit power (in the form of radio-waves) from a smartphone to another wearable device, potentially paving the way for battery-free gadgets, NUS said.
According to Business Insider
