Flexible, self-powered and modular E-textile platform for sport, health and safety applications

Smart wearables are becoming increasingly pervasive, driven by sustained advances in miniaturisation of electronics, improvements in sensors and connectivity, and growing capability to embed electronics in a variety of products. The market has seen steady growth in recent years, and this is projected to continue. KYMIRA believes the next generation of wearables will heavily include garments in which the electronics are embedded within the fabric textiles themselves. As such, this is what KYMIRA focuses R&D on and is in line to produce products for roll-out in the coming 3-5 years.These electronics embedded wearables will look to be powered by small, flexible batteries, if any. This is where energy harvesting (EH) mechanisms will prove valuable and by embedding these technologies within textile fabrics, truly self-sufficient viable products can be developed. Several EH techniques have been investigated for wearables, and PV cells have consistently been demonstrated as being highly efficient in their capabilities to provide power. Lightricity have developed industry leading PV cells capable of harvesting energy from outdoor as well as indoor light sources with very high efficiency, demonstrating their wide applicability.This project combines the electronic(e)-textile technology of KYMIRA, superior EH technology from Lightricity and flexible power storage solutions of Cambridge Display Technologies to develop a flexible, durable and comfortable e-textile solution capable of powering future wearable technologies.