SonoTextiles turn fabrics into smart sensors

Unlike some previous developments in this field, the ETH researchers pass acoustic waves through glass fibres, thereby making measurements more precise and the textiles lighter, more breathable and easier to wash.

“While research has already been conducted into smart textiles based on acoustics, we are the first to explore the use of glass fibre in combination with signals that use different frequencies,” said Yingqiang Wang, the first author of the study that has been published in Nature Electronics.

The researchers have woven glass fibres into the fabric at regular intervals. At one end of each glass fibre is a small transmitter that emits sound waves. The other end of each of the glass fibres is connected to a receiver that measures whether the waves have changed.

Each transmitter works at a different frequency, so it requires little computing power to determine which fibre the sound waves have changed on. According to ETH Zurich, previous smart textiles often struggled with data overload and signal processing issues since each sensor location had to be evaluated individually.