Textile touch sensors for wearable and ubiquitous interfaces

Abstract

The design of textile touch sensing interaction was explored with the new metal composite embroidery yarns (MCEYs) and a simple and easy fabrication technique aimed towards robust and reliable pressure sensitive position sensors for wearable tangible interfaces. In this paper, the resistive sensing method of a potentiometer as an accurate positional indicator was chosen to make simple prototypes of MCEY embroidered touch sensors. A simple structure of embroidered potentiometer to create textile switches as an input device in a smart textile system was tested. Both one- and two-point sensing method were successfully demonstrated. A complete success rate on switching was observed. These simple but ingenious embroidered touch sensors showed the possibility of a soft, lightweight, flexible, freely foldable touchpad as a ubiquitous solution. It was also shown that these minimal fabrication technologies may be highly valued in the smart textile field thanks to their simplified interconnections, customizability and tailorability on double curvature surfaces.