In athletic gear, pants can measure leg movements while communicating with tops that track heart rate and other stats. Because signals travel in the UCI-invented system via magnetic induction – versus the continuous hard-wire connections that had been state-of-the-art in smart fabrics – it’s possible to coordinate separate pieces of clothing. The team’s innovation was designed to be highly flexible and tolerant of bodily motion. The UCI researchers extended the signal reach to more than 4 feet using passive magnetic metamaterials based on etched foils of copper and aluminum. The near-field communications protocol has enabled the growth in applications such as wireless device charging and powering of battery-free sensors, but a drawback of NFC has been its limited range of only a couple of inches. The system allows new segments to be added readily, and separate pieces of clothing can be paired to “talk” with one another. Tseng likens the technology to a railway that transmits power and signals as it crisscrosses a garment. “You would no longer need to manually unlock your car with a key or separate wireless device, and your body would become the badge to open facility gates.” “With our fabric, electronics establish signaling as soon as you hover your clothes over a wireless reader, so you can share information with a simple high-five or handshake,” he said. student in electrical engineering & computer science, said the invention enables wearers to digitally interact with nearby electronic devices and make secure payments with a single touch or swipe of a sleeve. Lead author Amirhossein Hajiaghajani, a UCI Ph.D. “This means you could potentially keep your phone in your pocket, and just by brushing your body against other textiles or readers, power and information can be transferred to and from your device.” Payments with a single touch of a sleeve Our fabrics work on the same principle, but we’ve extended the range significantly,” said co-author Peter Tseng, UCI assistant professor of electrical engineering & computer science. “If you’ve held your smartphone or charge card close to a reader to pay for a purchase, you have taken advantage of near-field signaling technologies. In a paper published recently in Nature Electronics, researchers in UCI’s Henry Samueli School of Engineering detail how they integrated advanced metamaterials into flexible textiles to create a system capable of battery-free communication between articles of clothing and nearby devices. A new step for near-field signaling technology These are just two applications made possible by a new “body area network”-enabling fabric invented by engineers at the University of California, Irvine. Consider the value of a hospital gown that continuously measures and transmits a patient’s vital signs.
Imagine your car starting the moment you get in because it recognizes the jacket you’re wearing.