Resistive Sensors with Smart Textiles for Wearable Technology: From Fabrication Processes to Integration with Electronics

Abstract

Smart textiles have received a lot of attention of research in the last decade for their use in wearable technologies [1]. Soft sensors and actuators have been developed for interaction with environment, increase of operator's safety, entertainment and physiological parameters monitoring [2]. This paper reviews the fabrication processes for smart textiles with conductive fibers and analyses the applications of soft sensors (pressure, temperature, etc) as components of e-textiles, the fabrication processes of smart fabrics with different type of fibers and discusses the properties of resistance related to smart sensors fabrication with different metal and polymeric fibers. Finally it is reported an example of a smart textile piezoresistive sensor developed for a smart training shoe for step rate monitoring interfaced to a smart watch.