SWIFT: Smart Wearable Intelligent Fibre-based Technology

Technology and our economy in general, usually advance either by incremental steps (e.g. scaling the size and number of transistors on a chip) or by quantum leaps (transition from vacuum tubes to semiconductor technologies). Disruptive technologies behind such revolutions are usually underpinned by new form of materials with dramatic, orders of magnitude improvements in applications, which change many aspects of our life simultaneously, penetrating every corner of our existence.

Wearable technologies present a market opportunity in excess of $53 billion [Soreon '15] in RCUK priority areas such as healthcare, wellbeing and Internet of Things (IoT). Current wearable technologies rely on rigid electronic components mounted on flexible materials such as plastic films. These offer limited compatibility with the skin in many circumstances, suffer washing and are uncomfortable to wear because they are not breathable.
Turning fibres into functional electronic components can address these problems. Work is already underway to have synthetic fibres with electronic functionality. However, issues such as breathability, washability and comfort still remain, as these are properties associated with natural materials.
This project will enable natural fibres such as cotton and wool to show basic electronic functions such as conductivity and light emission. SWIFT will demonstrate the potential of this approach, create impact and raise awareness. Further work would lead to greater functionality: i.e. sensing.

SWIFT aims to demonstrate new cotton-based optoelectronic fibre components that offer breathability, washability and compatibility with the skin. The project will exploit existing nanomaterials, functional organic materials and polymer composite technology together with the know-how on nanotechnology existing in Cambridge to develop conductive and light-emitting cotton/cellulose fibres that could be woven to make fibre-based, stretchable conductive and light-emitting fabrics for future textile-based wearable displays, sensors or smart patches with potential applications in healthcare, wellbeing, IoT, lighting, sensing.

The goal of the project is to identify the technology and produce opto-electronic fibres that are washable, breathable and compatible with the human skin as required by healthcare, sports and wellbeing applications. This will also act as a knowledge base to improve wearable electronic and optoelectronic devices through new functional textile components and to deliver cutting edge advances in the sustainable manufacturing, design, testing and integration of novel 1D fibre-based multi-functional opto-electronic components (e.g., light emitting and conductive) with traditional cotton/wool fabrics. Thus, this project will deliver both economic impact, by stimulating new UK-manufactured high-value products, and societal benefits, by utilising the resulting opto-electronic fibres in potentially many areas of flexible and wearable electronics including quality of life, energy efficiency and security. The beneficiaries of the project will be the UK's national chemical, textile, healthcare, fashion, electronic and polymer industries but will extend more widely. Considering the private sector, I have already identified several companies that will benefit from this work. To ease the transition to commercialisation, the proposal has strong alignment with industry needs and engages players as project collaborators: SmartLife, HeathCoat, Novalia.
More broadly, the functional fibre processing will lead to technological advances ranging from wearable body sensors (blood pressure, motion, glucose) and fibre-based healthcare devices (wearable skin-treatment and rehabilitation devices, smart patches) to wearable displays, and could impact products in multiple industries, from mobile communications, electronics and photonics, to healthcare, lighting and fashion. Engagement with industrial UK and global players in these sectors is thus crucial to maximise the impact. Policy-makers will also benefit from SWIFT, new policies will facilitate new commercial products with attraction of further R&D investments in UK. The introduction of fibre-based opto-electronic products will contribute to address national societal challenges such as accessible healthcare treatment for resource-poor areas, sustainable economic development and growth: offering cost-effective, low-power, safe and bio-compatible products for treatment and rehabilitation that will facilitate democratisation of healthcare treatments.
SWIFT will inspire also academic research environments, contribute to fresh ideas and new research opportunities in electronics, materials science and textiles. The novel fibre-based material will stimulate the investigation and modelling of the fibre's mechanical properties (such as elongation, compression, torsion, elastic modulus and fracture strength) as well as impact the research on continuous fibres manufacturing with desired properties.
Moreover, the results of this project will give immediate return to the local academic players such as the University of Cambridge, the Nanoscience Centre, the GCG, Graphene CDT and CIMLAE by engagement with various research groups (Profs. Kim and Sirringhaus) and other relevant research projects in the field (EU-project 1D-NEON).