SMART TEXTILES AND THEIR APPLICATIONS - VISUAL PERCEPTIONS

Smart textiles, encompassing electronics combined with textiles also called textronics, have a very promising realm in science and technology nowadays because of commercial viability and public interests. Smart textiles play a significant role as well in the European textile sector and assist the textile industry in its transformation into a competitive knowledge driven industry. These kinds of textiles combine knowledge from many disciplines with the specific requirements of textile. Numerous materials and systems are available together with devices for sensing and actuation, but they are not compatible with a textile or with the textile production processes. They could be transformed into a textile compatible structure or even in a full textile structure. Smart textiles can be defined as textiles that are able to sense and respond to changes in their environment. They may be divided into two classes: passive and active smart textiles. Passive smart textiles have the ability to change their properties according to an environmental stimulation. Shape memory materials, hydrophobic or hydrophilic textiles etc. make part of this category. Active smart textiles are fitted with sensors and actuators, in order to connect internal parameters to the transmitted message. They are able to detect different signals from the environment (temperature, light intensity, pollution...), to decide how to react and finally to act using various textile based, flexible or miniaturized actuators (textile displays, micro vibrating devices, LED, OLED...). The “decision” can be taken locally in case of embedded electronic devices (textile electronics) to smart textile structures or remotely in case the smart textile is wirelessly connected to clouds containing data base, servers with artificial intelligence software etc. and may be a part of Internet of Things (IoT) concept. This presentation focuses on smart textiles actuators used as active and passive flexible displays.