The Smart Textile Salon is coming up along with an exhibit that will showcase a variety of prototypes on April 21 in Ghent, Belgium. The projects range from child monitoring to reactive rugs. If you can get yourself to Belgium, you don't want to miss this line up:
- PROETEX - Final prototype (Carla Hertleer, Ghent University, Ghent, BE) - An advanced E-Textile system bringing together sensors, connections, transmission systems, and power management to be used in smart garments of emergency disaster personnel.
- ODITH - Interactive wheelchair posture monitoring system (Riccardo Marchesi, Texe srl, Firenze, IT) - A portable posture monitoring system "ODITH" especially developed for wheelchairs. Two textile pressure analog sensors are integrated in the chair backrest cover and two in the armrest covers, allowing a continuous monitoring of the upper body and arms.
- Active Belt to capture & process ECG signals (Kunal Mankodiya, Dept. of Rehabilitation Science & Tech., University of Pittsburgh, USA) - winner of SYSTEX Student Award 2010 - A wearable ECG chest belt named "Active Belt" which contains stitched textile electrodes for ECG detection and analog preprocessing circuits embedded in tiny cell-phone plugs.
- Heatable Coverall (Vera De Glas/Geert Hebbrecht, Sioen, BE) - A coverall including heating elements, connection wires with energy supply through a battery.
- Dance with Light - UGent TextielMobiel (Nicki Vlaemynck, University College Ghent, Ghent, BE) - A garment that can be used for playing the Sync-in-Team - social dance game. Integrated LEDs, accelerometers and a textile antenna ensure interaction between the players.
- A delicate phase of matter: a collection of liquid crystal colour-change surfaces (Sara Robertson, Heriot Watt University, Galashiels, UK) - A collection of flexible colour-change surfaces that demonstrate design potential for future directions in responsive surface design.
- Saturday Light Fever Super Hero (Evelyn Lebis, Swedish school of Textiles and Boras University, Boras, SW) - Saturday Light Fever is inspired by butterfly bio-mimicry and blinds the bad with brightness! A super hero costume with which the evil will be beaten through innocent appearance and dazzles with surprise effects.
- Flexible Light for Health and Wellbeing (Frank van Abeelen, Philips Research, Human Interaction & Experiences, Eindhoven, NL) - A 'blanket' for treatment of neonatal jaundice. Early born babies often suffer from this condition, which is visible as yellowing of the skin and must be treated with blue light.
- Human-computer Device integrated into Fire Fighter Jacket (Patrycja Bosowski, Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA) der RWTH Aachen, Aachen, GER) - A garment that helps fire-fighting personnel on duty through integration of a keybord in the sleeve or the garment and textile buttons and textile transmission lines.
- Prospie 1st prototypes (Hein Daanen, Thermal Physiologist, VU-University Amsterdam, Department of Human Performance, TNO Defence, Security and Safety, Soesterberg, NL)
- A garment that incorporates a cooling and a warning system for the industrial worker in the heat.
- Communicating child's jacket and mother's purse (Inese Parkova, Institute of Textile Materials Technologies and Design of the Riga Technical University, LVA) - a smart child's jacket and a mother's purse, which are communicating using a wireless data exchange protocol
- Remote control pillow (Patrycja Bosowski, Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA) der RWTH Aachen, Aachen, GER) - A pillow that incorporates a textile matrix serving as switch or remote control.
- UMIC Healthnet Shirt (Melanie Hörr / Till Quadflieg, Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA) der RWTH Aachen, Aachen, GER) - A shirt that measures your measure pulse through textile ECG electrodes.
- Canvas (Malte von Krshiwoblozki, Fraunhofer-Institut fuer Zuverlaessigkeit und Mikrointegration IZM, Abteilung SIIT, Berlin, GER) - A canvas that gives light which can be adapted to different shapes and rooms.
- AXON superhero (Joost Aanen, Eindhoven University of Technology, NL) - A superhero that has full control over the energy in its body. The superhero directs his energy into his hand to vanquish his opponents with a stunning blow of light.
- Lightening Textile (Melanie Hörr/Ivana Cujic, Institut für Textiltechnik (ITA) der RWTH Aachen, Aachen, GER) - A multilayered textile with integrated conductors and light emitting diodes.
- LUMINOUS CURTAIN & COVER (LC) (Miguel Ridao, SENSING Tex, Barcelona, SP) - A textiles with new functions for covering spaces or upholstery, and the emission of light.
- Intelligent rugs as pressure sensor (Ignacio Chanzá/José Gisbert, European Affairs -Textile Research Institute, Brussels, BE) - A carpet that stimulates blood circulation or can be used to control video.
- The NO Mosquito Shirt - From the idea to the market (Hélder Rosendo/Manuel Pinheiro, Technological Centre for the Textile and Clothing Industries of Portugal, PT) - A shirt that provides several levels of protection through micro-encapsulation of active repellent.
More at Smart Textiles Salon.