Bio-integrated wearable systems can measure a broad range of biophysical, biochemical, and environmental signals to provide critical insights into overall health status and to quantify human performance. Recent advances in material science, chemical analysis techniques, device designs, and assembly methods form the foundations for a uniquely differentiated type of wearable technology, characterized by noninvasive, intimate integration with the soft, curved, time-dynamic surfaces of the body. This review summarizes the latest advances in this emerging field of “bio-integrated” technologies in a comprehensive manner that connects fundamental developments in chemistry, material science, and engineering with sensing technologies that have the potential for widespread deployment and societal benefit in human health care. An introduction to the chemistries and materials for the active components of these systems contextualizes essential design considerations for sensors and associated platforms that appear in f...

Bio-Integrated Wearable Systems: A Comprehensive Review

Textiles have been concomitant of human civilization for thousands of years. With the advances in chemistry and materials, integrating textiles with energy harvesters will provide a sustainable, environmentally friendly, pervasive, and wearable energy solution for distributed on-body electronics in the era of Internet of Things. This article comprehensively and thoughtfully reviews research activities regarding the utilization of smart textiles for harvesting energy from renewable energy sources on the human body and its surroundings. Specifically, we start with a brief introduction to contextualize the significance of smart textiles in light of the emerging energy crisis, environmental pollution, and public health. Next, we systematically review smart textiles according to their abilities to harvest biomechanical energy, body heat energy, biochemical energy, solar energy as well as hybrid forms of energy. Finally, we provide a critical analysis of smart textiles and insights into remaining challenges and future directions. With worldwide efforts, innovations in chemistry and materials elaborated in this review will push forward the frontiers of smart textiles, which will soon revolutionize our lives in the era of Internet of Things.

Smart Textiles for Electricity Generation.

The programmable nature of smart textiles makes them an indispensable part of an emerging new technology field. Smart textile-integrated microelectronic systems (STIMES), which combine microelectronics and technology such as artificial intelligence and augmented or virtual reality, have been intensively explored. A vast range of research activities have been reported. Many promising applications in healthcare, the internet of things (IoT), smart city management, robotics, etc., have been demonstrated around the world. A timely overview and comprehensive review of progress of this field in the last five years are provided. Several main aspects are covered: functional materials, major fabrication processes of smart textile components, functional devices, system architectures and heterogeneous integration, wearable applications in human and nonhuman-related areas, and the safety and security of STIMES. The major types of textile-integrated nonconventional functional devices are discussed in detail: sensors, actuators, displays, antennas, energy harvesters and their hybrids, batteries and supercapacitors, circuit boards, and memory devices.

Smart Textile-Integrated Microelectronic Systems for Wearable Applications

The increasing demand for wearable electronics and the intensification of electromagnetic pollution have boosted the exploration of high-performance flexible microwave absorption (MA) materials Herein, the hierarchical Ti3C2Tx MXene/Ni chain/ZnO array hybrid nanostructures are rationally constructed on cotton fabric for acquiring enhanced MA performance and durable self-cleaning ability Based on the high dielectric loss capacity of MXenes and ZnO arrays, by controlling dip-coating numbers of Ni chains, the magnetic loss can be manipulated to modulate the impedance matching, reflection loss (RL), and effective absorption bandwidth (EAB, the bandwidth of RL < -10 dB) The minimum RL value of the designed fabric can reach -351 dB at 83 GHz with a thickness of 28 mm, and its EAB can cover the whole X-band with only a 22 mm thickness In addition, the designed fabric also exhibits superior liquid repellency and durable self-cleaning ability due to the combination of the hybrid nanostructures and a superhydrophobic coating This work provides an insight for rational design of textile-based MA materials, showing potential applications in flexible and wearable functional electronics

Hierarchical Ti3C2Tx MXene/Ni Chain/ZnO Array Hybrid Nanostructures on Cotton Fabric for Durable Self-Cleaning and Enhanced Microwave Absorption.

High-performance flexible strain and pressure sensors are important components of the systems for human motion detection, human–machine interaction, soft robotics, electronic skin, etc., which are envisioned as the key technologies for applications in future human healthcare monitoring and artificial intelligence. In recent years, highly flexible and wearable strain/pressure sensors have been developed based on various materials/structures and transduction mechanisms. Piezoresistive three-dimensional (3D) monolithic conductive sponge, the resistance of which changes upon external pressure or stimuli, has emerged as a forefront material for flexible and wearable pressure sensor due to its excellent sensor performance, facile fabrication, and simple circuit integration. This review focuses on the rapid development of the piezoresistive pressure sensors based on 3D conductive sponges. Various piezoresistive conductive sponges are categorized into four different types and their material and structural charact...

Recent Advances in Flexible and Wearable Pressure Sensors Based on Piezoresistive 3D Monolithic Conductive Sponges.

Low-dimensional carbon based sensors and sensing network for wearable health and environmental monitoring

Textile Electronics for VR/AR Applications

Wearable electronics textiles are a new emerging phenomenon. These are textiles that incorporate electrical properties, for example heating, light emitting, sensing, etc., and are now being rapidly developed due to the creation of new types of fibers and fiber composites. The different ways that can be used to combine conductive fibers with electronics components have been receiving much attention in wearable electronics research. However, to meet the requirements for both aesthetics and function, textiles technology and the garment design method are important for commercial success. In order to apply electronics to fabrics with the use of conductive fibers, complex and elastic fabric structures both need to be modeled. Therefore, the focus of this study is to examine the resistance properties of single pique, a fabric that is conductive and has a knitted structure that uses tuck stitches, a typical structure in knitting. A planar geometric model is established for a single pique structure based on the lo...

Smart E-textile: Resistance properties of conductive knitted fabric – Single pique

Currently, conductive yarn can be knitted into fabrics to endow the traditional textile product with special attributes, such as shielding electromagnetic waves, detecting and transferring electrical signals, replacing fingers in the operation of touch-screen panels, etc. Research on the electrical properties of conductive knitted fabrics can contribute to the development of such functional textiles. A few studies have been conducted, and it has been found that the variation of the knitted structure can impact the properties of a conductive knitted fabric. Among the properties of conductive fabrics, the resistance value is an important index to decide the performance of electrical functions. Several researchers have conducted practical experiments and theoretical analyses to predict the resistance of plain weft knitted structure. However, in addition to the plain weft knitted structure, the float structure is another important basic knitted structure.Therefore, a geometric model incorporated with a simpli...

Su Liu

Papers

Smart Textile-Integrated Microelectronic Systems for Wearable Applications

Low-dimensional carbon based sensors and sensing network for wearable health and environmental monitoring

Textile Electronics for VR/AR Applications

Smart E-textile: Resistance properties of conductive knitted fabric – Single pique

The impact of float stitches on the resistance of conductive knitted structures