Intelligent Clothing

i-Wear Intelligent Clothing

A Starlab Consortium

Walter Van de [email protected]

Science Entrepreneurs

“One of the hottest companies in Europe”

“The most progressive new-economy research lab in the world”

“Where everything is happening, right here in Brussels”

“I came here to mock, but I wanted to stay to pray”

-The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company Magazine, Sunday Times

Starlab: Levels of Research

Long-term perspective stimulates short-term innovation

Public Funding

Industrial Sponsorship

Spin-offs

IP

IP

Consortia: Innovation and Focus

• Consortia define a playground for the exploration of a broad vision.

• Sponsors give ‘Carte Blanche’ but steering committee follows up.

• Sponsors get full and royalty free access to all results.• In effect a consortium creates a pool of

intellectual property.

A good consortium is cross-sectorial.

Website: www.iwear.com

• The i-Wear consortium started in December 1999• It runs for 5 years• Networking effects are happening• Products are starting to be influenced• But i-Wear maintains a long term perspective

I-Wear: some relevant sectors

• Fibers and Textile• Software and interfaces• Appliances• Design• Micro-Electronics• Bio-chemistry• Accessories• Communications

• Medicine• Sports• Entertainment• Fashion and Life Style• Security• Work• Laundry and Rental• Traveling

I-Wear aims at cross-sector collaboration, exploitationand the creation of new markets

I-Wear Objectives

• To research into the theories, technologies, methods and techniques that will enable a vision of intelligent clothing.

• Intelligent clothing includes old and new accessories.

• It will be linked more and more into the local and global resources of ubiquitous computing environment.

Intelligent clothing will change (or return to) the role of clothing as a means of expression, social embedding, communication and well-being

The i-Wear vision: 2 pillars

We view intelligent clothing as a functionalisablesecond skin that acts as interface to self, activity and environment.

• Fabric as memory, • Fabric as communication, • Fabric as interface,• Fabric as power,• Fabric as connectivity,• Fabric as computation,• ...

i-Wear second skin: layers of resources

The decomposition in resources is physically realized through an ad-hoc collection of layers.

i-Wear Fabric Area Network: a cornerstone

FAN assures seamless combination of resources from different layers. FAN realizes wireless traffic of power and data within and among different garments.

Avantex 2000 Innovation Prize

Integration of clothing and technology

Integration can happen at various levels:• Garment level:

late-stage integration• Fabric level:

textile is collection of sheets and membranes

• Fiber level:for example: fiber sensing, fiber computing, fiber powering.

Toward ‘weavable’ functionality.

i-Wear awareness features (the second pillar)

Cloths will know who is wearing them, what the wearer is doing, and in what kind of environment: context.

There is more to context than location.

i-Wear is more than just another terminal awareness adds important value

i-Wear as an actively caring envelope

i-Wear: Technology for Enabling Awareness

Technology for Enabling Awarenessmaps sensors to space-activity contexts

.3.6

.3 .1

Awareness: a Case StudyDifferent types of activities

Different types of locations

Predictive capacity

Awareness and functionality

Awareness model (Environment, Activity, Self)Awareness model (Environment, Activity, Self)

Sensor resources: cue modulesSensor resources: cue modules

Application LayerApplication Layer

plug&play-like Protocolplug&play-like Protocolflexibilityflexibility

stabilitystability

i-Wear: some Research Topics (roadmap)

• Wireless Communication System and Protocol• Hardware and Computing Platform• Power• Electro-Mechanical Sensors and Bio-Sensing• Operating System and Awareness• Textile and Fiber Integration• Design, Fashion, Usability, Health and Safety• i-Wear Applications and Value-Added Services• Process related issues

Website: www.iwear.com

• i-Wear researches a fundamental vision of intelligent clothing• It relies on the combined effort of all sectors involved• It is resolutely interdisciplinary in its research• It maintains a long term perspective for short term innovation