E-textiles manufacturing platform for wearable healthcare applications

This project will develop electronic textiles (E-textiles) platform technologies for healthcare applications. The research work includes:

1, Printed electronic materials development and manufacturing. This involves the research on new electrode material formulations (e.g. conductive carbon, graphene, 2D materials), and the fabrication processing of electrodes using printing technologies (e.g. screen printing, 3D printing, dispenser printing). An electrode database with electrical and mechanical properties for different electrode formulations will be developed.

2, Electronic yarn development. This work will advance the current state-of-the art technology developed in the EPSRC funded project in SEMS group to make is suitable for scale up and practical applications. Different electronic components (e.g. microprocessors, accelerometers) will be integrated onto printed tracks made by fineline screen printing. Packaging and integration methods will be developed to ensure user comfort and durability for long term use.

3, application development. The platform developed will be tested in healthcare application. For example, 1) wearable e-textiles that can improve the mobility or reduce the pain; meanwhile track the recovery through monitoring the gestures/movement. 2) wearable e-textiles for biopotential minoring (e.g. ECG, EEG).