Optimizing the design of smart clothing for environmental robustness in daily use

Smart clothing represents a rapidly growing technology in fitness and medical applications. Textile-based wearables have been explored in the last 10 years thanks to significant developments in conductive textile materials and integration techniques. A major hurdle for the translation of these developments to daily life is the susceptibility to real world conditions such as sweat and washing in standard domestic settings. This project aims at developing solutions to enhance robustness of electronic textiles to machine washing and sweat. The project is highly experimental and hands-on and offers the possibility to work on the concrete applicability of a popular technology in the real world. This project will offer valuable insight into wearable textile based technology and corresponding fabrication, state of the art testing methods, and data analysis and visualization.

Smart clothing represents a rapidly growing technology in fitness and medical applications. Textile-based wearables have been explored in the last 10 years thanks to significant developments in conductive textile materials and integration techniques. A major hurdle for the translation of these developments to daily life is the susceptibility to real world conditions such as sweat and washing in standard domestic settings. This project aims at developing solutions to enhance robustness of electronic textiles to machine washing and sweat. The project is highly experimental and hands-on and offers the possibility to work on the concrete applicability of a popular technology in the real world. This project will offer valuable insight into wearable textile based technology and corresponding fabrication, state of the art testing methods, and data analysis and visualization.

Goals • Develop and improve functional textile elements for enhanced stability against sweat and machine washing • Identify and implement a suitable protocol for testing the effect of sweat and machine washing on smart textile prototypes and their elements (sensors, connections, …) Tasks • Literature review (10%) • Definition of the protocol and testing conditions (10%) • Wash tests and optimization of the textile sensors (70%) • Report and presentation (10%) Requirements • Weekly summary of results and updated research plan • Continuous idea generation and exploration • Final written report • Final presentation of approximately 30 minutes (15 minutes of presentation followed by a discussion)

Goals

• Develop and improve functional textile elements for enhanced stability against sweat and machine washing
• Identify and implement a suitable protocol for testing the effect of sweat and machine washing on smart textile prototypes and their elements (sensors, connections, …)


Tasks

• Literature review (10%)
• Definition of the protocol and testing conditions (10%)
• Wash tests and optimization of the textile sensors (70%)
• Report and presentation (10%)


Requirements

• Weekly summary of results and updated research plan
• Continuous idea generation and exploration
• Final written report
• Final presentation of approximately 30 minutes (15 minutes of presentation followed by a discussion)

Prof Dr Carlo Menon, PhD student Valeria Galli, and Dr. Chakaveh Ahmadizadeh will supervise the student and the research will be performed at ETH Zurich in the Biomedical and Mobile Health Technology research group (www.bmht.ethz.ch) located in the Balgrist Campus in Zurich, Switzerland. To apply, use the button below to tell us why you want to do this project ("motivation"); attach a CV with your current program of study, your grades and any other info you deem relevant If you are interested and/or have questions regarding the project, please get in touch with Valeria Galli (valeria.galli@hest.ethz.ch).

Prof Dr Carlo Menon, PhD student Valeria Galli, and Dr. Chakaveh Ahmadizadeh will supervise the student and the research will be performed at ETH Zurich in the Biomedical and Mobile Health Technology research group (www.bmht.ethz.ch) located in the Balgrist Campus in Zurich, Switzerland.

To apply, use the button below to tell us why you want to do this project ("motivation"); attach a CV with your current program of study, your grades and any other info you deem relevant

If you are interested and/or have questions regarding the project, please get in touch with Valeria Galli (valeria.galli@hest.ethz.ch).