Tessuti intelligenti: l’ingegneria fin dalla progettazione

I dispostivi indossabili sono diventati accessori modaioli indispensabili. Come possiamo rendere la tecnologia assistiva altrettanto appetibile? Anche il dispositivo più sosfisticato risulterà inutile se è scomodo o antiestetico. In questo episodio, approfondiremo i punti di incontro tra design e ingegneria, per scoprire come la prossima generazione di tessuti intelligenti può rendere invisibile la tecnologia assistiva.

Società

Apple Podcasts EC Audiovisual Service Podcasts Spotify Google Podcasts

Transcript

CORDIScovery podcast- Episode #20 - Smart textiles – engineering by design This is an AI transcription. 00:00:10:05 - 00:00:16:00 Abigail Acton This is CORDIScovery. 00:00:16:01 - 00:00:42:12 Abigail Acton Hello. Welcome to this episode of CORDIScovery With me, Abigail Acton. Phones, watches, rings that quantify sleep technology comes in ever more diverse forms, and companies are focused on making the latest iterations. Covetable. How can the notion of wearables, as must have fashion, be applied when it comes to assistive technology? The most sophisticated devices are useless. If it's uncomfortable and however useful it might be, it's hard to feel enthusiastic about something that's ugly or cumbersome. 00:00:42:14 - 00:01:10:06 Abigail Acton Today's episode explores the way smart textiles are evolving in the world of assistive technology. We're looking at the interface between engineering, design and application. Our three guests will show how technical constraints can be overcome to produce great devices people will want to use to remain independent in their own homes. Professor of Health Design and Human Factors at Coventry University, Louise Moody, combines a background in psychology with a practical approach to design. 00:01:10:08 - 00:01:16:11 Abigail Acton Her focus is on developing health technology, enabling people to maintain their dignity and independence. Hello, Louise. 00:01:16:13 - 00:01:17:15 Louise Moody Hello, everybody. 00:01:17:17 - 00:01:36:09 Abigail Acton Andrew Cobley is a professor of electrochemical deposition and leads the Functional Materials and Chemistry Group at Coventry University. Andrew's 20 years of electronic manufacturing now feed into his work on the electrochemical metalization of non conductive materials and the creation of next generation e-textiles. Welcome, Andrew. 00:01:36:12 - 00:01:39:06 Andrew Cobley Thanks, Abigail. Hello, everybody. 00:01:39:08 - 00:01:53:11 Abigail Acton Elif Ozden Yenigun is a senior lecturer in textiles at the Royal College of Art. Her research concentrates on molecular materials, design and innovative approaches to textile manufacturing, Elif’s work has been applied to the fashion, automotive and aerospace industries. Hi, Elif. 00:01:53:15 - 00:01:55:23 Elif Ozden Yenigun Thank you again to everyone. 00:01:56:00 - 00:02:14:20 Abigail Acton Louise, I'm going to turn to you first, if I may. You were the co-principal investigator on the MATUROLIFE Project, which set out to develop fashionable metalized textiles to be used in devices designed to help the elderly live independently. You approached the task from the user's perspective and feed that into design concepts. Can you tell us more about what that means in practice? 00:02:14:20 - 00:02:16:20 Abigail Acton How would you define good design? 00:02:16:22 - 00:02:46:09 Louise Moody And so I bookmarked this project from a human factors perspective, which is really very much about understanding and making the best of people's capabilities by designing things that are fit for fit that I use. Typically in human factors context, we're looking at increasing productivity, enhancing safety and comfort and minimizing error and bringing in a range of different disciplines to enhance our design process. 00:02:46:11 - 00:03:09:24 Louise Moody And in this particular project, we've applied it in a number of different ways, but we've been looking not only a good design process and methods for enhancing what we produce, but also looking at, well, design products. And from our perspective, that's been about working with the end users, the people that we want to use these in the end to ensure that we've met their needs. 00:03:10:01 - 00:03:32:08 Abigail Acton Right. And I mean, there are assistive products obviously, already to enable people to live independently. I'm thinking, for example, of a full detector that my mother has, but it's not something she takes any pleasure in wearing. It's quite large. It's not at all attractive and so on. So when you would consulting with user groups, what were some of the things that you were hearing about what they they were looking for themselves? 00:03:32:10 - 00:03:57:14 Louise Moody That's exactly the space that we've been looking at in this project. We know there's a raft of assistive technology out there available to people, but we know they don't necessarily want to use it and they might well buy it and it might end up in a cupboard. And what we're particularly interested in is how we tackle some of these emotional issues around the purchase and use of assistive technology to ensure that people get the best benefit from it. 00:03:57:14 - 00:04:26:07 Louise Moody That they can. What we know is that often there might be a stigma associated with use and that might be, for example, drawing attention to somebody's age or something they can't do. And therefore it's it's not desirable for them to own a new technology. So what we're interested in is, is designing with subtlety and how we might embed assistive functions that aren't necessarily obvious to everybody around them. 00:04:26:09 - 00:04:34:06 Abigail Acton And what sort of prototypes was material life developing when we're talking. Can we talk specifically about what you were actually producing? 00:04:34:08 - 00:05:11:12 Louise Moody Yes, we've worked on three particular areas. We've been looking at footwear. We've been looking at clothing and we've been looking at furniture. So products that people have around their houses which were on that person and that could in fact embed some assistive functionality to help them out day today. So we've looked at footwear to help improve balance. We've looked at clothing to help people stay warm and and collect vital signs about their body. 00:05:11:12 - 00:05:20:14 Louise Moody And we've also looked at furniture to help people develop healthy sleeping routines and help them to keep acting. 00:05:20:16 - 00:05:40:11 Abigail Acton Right. Okay. That sounds very interesting. So we're coming at it from various angles. So you're obviously sort of immersed in in in the user's needs and coming at it sort of empathically from trying to understand and identify what might be causing them to hold back from using something and so on. How do you think how do you see the domain of assistive technology developing more generally? 00:05:40:11 - 00:05:45:24 Abigail Acton So beyond this particular project, where do you think this is going to go? Ultimately? Where would you like it to go? 00:05:46:01 - 00:06:17:20 Louise Moody I think our key agenda really for the combination of design and materials is is about developing things that fit more seamlessly in day to day life. And we we know, for example, we've got an aging population and there's a growing market for products in this space and better resistance to necessarily buy and use. And I think we need to look at more in-home solutions and able to people to stay at home. 00:06:17:22 - 00:06:32:01 Louise Moody Living alone potentially, but independently within their their own environments. And that's where we need to to be looking at that consumer market and how we make products desirable for people. 00:06:32:03 - 00:06:41:16 Abigail Acton Excellent. I'm sure my mother, for one, would be delighted with all the work that you're doing. Does anyone have any questions for Louise? Any observations to make? 00:06:41:18 - 00:06:55:04 Andrew Cobley Louise This is obviously a European project. We had representatives from nine different countries. So did you notice any cultural differences in the co-creation workshop. 00:06:55:06 - 00:07:27:07 Louise Moody We did, we had a range of, of older adults, particularly involved from the nine different countries that were partnering on the Project. And there were some obvious differences, for example, related to the weather, the British weather and how that might very much impact what people wanted. And I think there's also cultural differences in in terms of the amount of support the people have around them in their local areas, depending on the country. 00:07:27:09 - 00:08:04:02 Louise Moody But we also saw lots of commonalities in terms of the types of concerns the older adults had as they age and the things that they feel vulnerable about, but also the sorts of things that their families were interested in supporting them with them, but also the things families might want reassurance over. So one of the recurring themes was particularly around Falls, and that's where some of the products that we've developed really sort of fit in the space around falls firstly in terms of falls prevention, but also in terms of providing alerts and safety systems in the event of someone falling. 00:08:04:02 - 00:08:16:06 Louise Moody So based off of footwear solution and the furniture based solution were about people being able to make contact and maintain connection with others. 00:08:16:08 - 00:08:38:20 Abigail Acton Okay, wonderful. I certainly would be delighted if someone was able to provide that for my parents and I'm sure other people as well. Andrew, I'm going to come to you because very interestingly this time we're actually inviting two guests from the same projects that. Andrew you were also on the MATUROLIFE you were the principal investigator on the project and you worked alongside Louise. 00:08:38:22 - 00:09:02:08 Abigail Acton Unusually, we're looking at this project coming from two different angles the design and the technical development and the interface between the two. So you put your expertise in electrochemical deposition to materialize. What were the key challenges presented by the goals of the project in terms of the actual chemistry side and the actual making of the textiles? And why were you attracted to solving them? 00:09:02:10 - 00:09:31:08 Andrew Cobley Okay. Well, my background is in electronic manufacturing, and in particular I specialized in developing processes to selectively metalized non conductive materials. So developing a process to select elements like the textile was very attractive to me from the materials perspective in the project, what we wanted to do was to produce electronic textiles that were better integrated into the textile itself. 00:09:31:08 - 00:10:07:24 Andrew Cobley So rather than, for example, adding wires into the textile, which can make the textile very stiff and heavy, our approach was to actually maximize the fibers within the textile to encapsulate them with a very thin layer of metal and in that way introduce conductivity. So the idea was to produce a multi functional material. So because we only produced this very thin layer of metal, the textile retains some of its properties, such as being flexible and light. 00:10:08:01 - 00:10:37:17 Andrew Cobley But we've now also introduced conductivity and sensing abilities. For example, I think one of the important things, however, to remember was that, I mean, science is littered with the debris of many great ideas that never saw the light of day because no one wanted to use them. And it would have been very easy for us to of chosen a particular textile that we could easily print or we could easily plate. 00:10:37:19 - 00:10:51:07 Andrew Cobley But we needed to talk to the design team and understand what they needed and what the end users needed in terms of a textile. And we both had to make compromises to achieve our objectives. 00:10:51:09 - 00:11:10:12 Abigail Acton That's I mean, that's what really interests me is how you worked and, and how these two disciplines meshed together to produce these prototypes. What technological aspects or approaches did you explore before you finally arrived at that, the way that you solved the problem? In other words, I know we used copper, but did you try to use the materials and other metals? 00:11:10:14 - 00:11:12:18 Abigail Acton How did you go about actually arriving at the end result? 00:11:12:21 - 00:11:37:24 Andrew Cobley But we use a process known as electrolysis copper plating. That's a very well known process in electronic manufacturing, in particular printed circuit board manufacture to achieve electronic connectivity. Now this process requires a catalyst and wherever you want to get your copper deposited, you need to put in a catalyst. So that is very useful if you want selective deposition. 00:11:38:01 - 00:12:08:08 Andrew Cobley Now, traditionally that catalyst is based on palladium. Palladium is very expensive and so, so critical raw materials. So the approach we wanted to do was to develop a non precious metal catalyst. And we we decided to work on developing copper nanoparticle catalysts, but we also wanted to be able to print that catalyst so that we could print it onto the textile and selectively metalized textile to create circuitry and sensors. 00:12:08:13 - 00:12:33:00 Andrew Cobley And that was probably one of the biggest challenges actually, because we had done work in the past on using copper as a catalyst. So we knew that would work. But then formulating it into an ink is not an insignificant challenge. Now we have to get the viscosity right so that it will print. And also once his print saves, you don't want it to spread because then that could cause short circuits. 00:12:33:02 - 00:12:50:17 Andrew Cobley So yeah, once we had printed our catalyst, we were able to place it with electrons, copper around about two and a half microns of copper. And the reason we chose copper was because it's got very good electronic properties and it's cheap, relatively cheap and it's abundant. 00:12:50:22 - 00:13:09:16 Abigail Acton Okay, that's great. So can you we've just heard Louise talking about the various prototypes and the various objects were were being developed and the shoe concept is quite an interesting one. Can you tell me more about how then what you developed was integrated within a shoe and what was that setting up to achieve. 00:13:09:18 - 00:13:46:12 Andrew Cobley It used the principal catalyst to print circuitry onto an insole of a shoe? And that was quite a challenge because again, I mentioned that to produce this circuitry you need a certain gap between the lines of the circuit. And so as I said, we need to make sure that that catalyst didn't spread. But yeah, the that allowed us to get our conductivity and, and connectivity on the, on the insole And also we were able to print copper to where the pressure sensors would connect into the insole. 00:13:46:17 - 00:13:52:20 Abigail Acton And what did that show to for a user? What were you hoping to learn? What was about gait or exactly. 00:13:52:20 - 00:14:18:10 Andrew Cobley Yeah. So the I mean, we didn't I think what is important to realize is that these were prototypes and not perhaps the the finished product. But what we wanted to do was to show what would be possible with further development. So the idea with, say, the insole and the shoe was that you would be able to get a pattern of your walking as you as you walked along. 00:14:18:12 - 00:14:42:07 Andrew Cobley So using machine learning the computer if you want, or the brain, the brain could understand what your normal gait, what your normal walking pattern was like. And then if it detected any variance from that, that could be a warning signal. Something's changed here. You know, it could send a signal to either the user and themselves and say, we think something's wrong, you need to sit down. 00:14:42:09 - 00:14:48:05 Andrew Cobley Or it could send a signal to a camera or family member and say, you know, we think there's a problem here. 00:14:48:07 - 00:15:01:21 Abigail Acton Okay, excellent. Yes. So a way of providing reassurance and an early alert, perhaps, to those who are concerned. Yeah. Yeah. Super. Any questions for Andrew? Yes. Elif what would you like to ask or say? 00:15:01:23 - 00:15:19:12 Elif Ozden Yenigun I've got to ask. How have you found the experience of working with textiles and textile processes? Because the press is so pretty fast and also open to hand interventions, which is, you know, like quite different than the electronic sim and circuit reproduction. 00:15:19:14 - 00:15:55:03 Andrew Cobley Yeah, well, we, we tried to use a similar process really. I mean, we didn't go to the sort of full scale production. So, you know, we had a piece of textile which we printed onto and then we plated and then we, you know, formed into the sort of shape that we needed for the various prototypes. So I mean, working with textiles, as you say, it was more difficult because, you know, chemistry soaks into a textile, it can spread out. 00:15:55:05 - 00:16:22:13 Andrew Cobley So we needed to try and avoid that to some extent. To some extent, we wanted it to go into the textiles so that we would get very robust and good electronic connectivity. But also we didn't want it to spread too much. So that we got short circuit. So yeah, we certainly learned a lot throughout the process of of using a very different type of material. 00:16:22:15 - 00:16:44:13 Abigail Acton Okay, thanks, Andy. I'm going to turn to Elif now, and you took on both Andy and Louise as roles in your Horizon 2020 project, GFSMART. You were developing ways to seamlessly integrate communications technology into textiles as well, but while at the same time maintaining the wearer's comfort. So for you, the electronic components had to be lightweight and compact and flexible and unobtrusive. 00:16:44:13 - 00:16:52:13 Abigail Acton So it sounds like a tall order. What attracted you to this area of research? Why were you enticed by these challenges? 00:16:52:15 - 00:17:25:03 Elif Ozden Yenigun We live in a connected words, and as humans we are part of this connected network, voluntarily or involuntarily. So in the smart textiles, I put too much focus on the antennas. So antennas are the essential parts of communication so that they can receive signal or send signals or in some constructions they can do bots. So in in the field that I'm much more interested in how the attendant and also defines the communication channel for us, the bandwidth and the nature of data. 00:17:25:05 - 00:17:53:03 Elif Ozden Yenigun So this was quite fascinating because this data could be your location information or health data such as heartbeat or body temperature or any other information that is secure enough to transfer wirelessly, basically. And we live in textiles, which is a pervasive element to human perception, isn't it? That's why, as a materials scientist, I am more into creating textile version of this electronic components. 00:17:53:05 - 00:18:25:17 Elif Ozden Yenigun And in my research as well, I believe we are heading to a more sort version of devices. You may have heard the term more flexible electronics from the materials and the textile point of view, the antennas called wearable antennas, usually designed by communication engineers, but they do not fully meet the haptic needs of users. Those I have been always in search of this alternative materials systems that align involved with user acceptance. 00:18:25:17 - 00:18:53:02 Abigail Acton So I think just to clarify, so what you're saying is that in the past the antennas have been designed perhaps with a certain goal and in a in a certain manner, and you were selecting to design them with a different application. In other words, embedded in fabric, which then meant that they had to be much more tactile. I know that you've told me before that one of your main concerns was making fabrics almost the same. 00:18:53:02 - 00:19:15:10 Abigail Acton In other words, for the antennas to be almost indistinguishable. What materials were you looking at for your antennas? So we know that Andrew, for example, was was using copper in order to construct circuits when you were coming to integrate your antenna into material, in order to keep that material feeling normal, What, what were you using? 00:19:15:12 - 00:19:49:07 Elif Ozden Yenigun We use carbon, the analog track of abandoned carbon, which is a 2D honeycomb structure called graphene. And graphene, promises many remarkable properties, such as a large surface area, high electrical conductivity, high thermal conductivity, high optical activity, which is also quite important for us, and high mechanical strength. However, it's a bit tricky to transfer this territorial superiority to the practical life. 00:19:49:09 - 00:20:15:04 Elif Ozden Yenigun This is that material scientists is actually use textiles and in practice graphene's conductivity is not high as high as the common metals such as silver, copper or gold in e-textiles. But once you have the ability to control the textiles, then you can control the electromagnetic radiation and the response of this graphene surfaces onto the textiles. 00:20:15:06 - 00:20:23:10 Abigail Acton Okay. And why the imperative to do this at all Elif? What was the what was the ultimate goal with these materials that you were producing? How were you hoping they were going to be used? 00:20:23:12 - 00:20:53:24 Elif Ozden Yenigun I mean, first of all, there are lots of issues around bringing metals into the textile products that we just started to realize actually. So electronic textiles, in short, e-textiles are about to face this tremendous environmental and resource challenges due to the complexity of sorting and the risk to supplies and also of metal contamination in the textile recycling streams and the textiles. 00:20:53:24 - 00:21:21:04 Elif Ozden Yenigun And also the electronics industry is a bit behind those particular regulations into this mixed material systems. And we are trying to embrace not a human centered approach, but also a planet’s centric approach and explore other natural materials in the antenna design in the wearable antenna designs. 00:21:21:06 - 00:21:24:23 Abigail Acton To do what? What would be the purpose of these these materials. 00:21:25:00 - 00:22:11:13 Elif Ozden Yenigun Is to, you know, like create some communicating pieces, which is embedded in the textile that in the garment itself. I think so. I mean, it depends. Initially, we proposed the project. It's for the people who suffer from Alzheimer's, and we just proposed this system as a unobstructed bay of working people. So you have, you know, like high touch sensitivity or like being touch, but ultimately it's not limited With tracking the location tracking, you may also tune your system a bit to, you know, like monitor your heart data. 00:22:11:15 - 00:22:17:18 Abigail Acton Right. Excellent. Well, thank you very much. Fantastic. Does anyone have any observations or questions to put to Elif at all? 00:22:17:20 - 00:22:21:13 Andrew Cobley How did you integrate the graphene into the textile? 00:22:21:18 - 00:22:51:18 Elif Ozden Yenigun So there is this hierarchy to take sides starting from the yarn you use different approach. So there are some ways to, you know, like use graphene as a coating that's lumping in antenna application we preferred to use them as well, like a laminated structure, which is, you know, like attached to textiles structure using Coil did have a binder. 00:22:51:20 - 00:22:52:23 Abigail Acton But was the binder? 00:22:53:00 - 00:23:00:09 Elif Ozden Yenigun Yeah, it's a bio and box. It's not like an apple. So, but like, it's like a gum. 00:23:00:09 - 00:23:00:17 Abigail Acton Okay. 00:23:00:19 - 00:23:04:21 Elif Ozden Yenigun It does attach to the cellulosic substrates. 00:23:04:23 - 00:23:08:05 Abigail Acton Okay. Any any other comments or observations? 00:23:08:07 - 00:23:28:04 Andrew Cobley Why not a comment I would make? I think I made a really good point about a e-textiles and how that could add to the issue of electronic waste and actually, it's an interesting point because one of the things we want to do is to better integrate electronics into textiles, to make them more sort of invisible, if you like. 00:23:28:04 - 00:23:51:21 Andrew Cobley So you're not so you don't realize so much that they're there. But on the other hand, that also means it's more difficult to separate so that means that you're going to end up with wearable technology in both the electronics industry and the textile industry, I've had a terrible carbon footprint and the terrible environmental impacts at the moment, and I'm actually that could make it worse. 00:23:51:21 - 00:23:58:18 Andrew Cobley So it's an interesting point and it's an interesting area that we need to think about. Those of us working in that area. 00:23:58:20 - 00:24:21:16 Abigail Acton Yeah, indeed, since try and find ways of making them spring apart. Or alternatively I suppose use conductors that are somehow able to be recycled in the same way as fabric. I have a question that I'd like to ask all of you, because this is the central thing that fascinates me about this work that you've all been doing, really is the is the way that you all come together with different disciplines. 00:24:21:16 - 00:24:37:01 Abigail Acton Elif sort of did a bit of both. She was coming from the design and also from the the technology angle. But generally speaking to all of you, what have you learned from working with people whose areas of expertise differs from your own? Louise, can I come to you first for that one? 00:24:37:03 - 00:25:05:11 Louise Moody Yes, and we certainly had a range of different disciplines in in our projects. And I don't think it's just differences in terms of disciplines either. We've got different languages, different cultures, different discipline backgrounds and languages, which which can make it not and not only exciting but also challenging at times in terms of coming up with a shared vision for the direction we were going in. 00:25:05:13 - 00:25:37:21 Louise Moody And I think that's also probably one of the things that we've enjoyed most or achieved most in terms of the project is moving together in terms of different disciplines and working out how to negotiate some of these challenges. I think one of the ways we we tried to tackle that in mature life was using design management approaches and ways of communicating and workshopping that we would use in a design discipline in terms of sharing ideas and developing pathways. 00:25:37:23 - 00:26:07:18 Louise Moody And that was embedded in in the way we ran many of the project meetings over the period of time. And of course we also had the challenge pandemic and the fact that during the projects we, we shifted to working remotely and that caused a number of challenges for the individual disciplines and for us coming together. In some ways we all became much more familiar with with working online in this way, which we would do routinely, I guess is part of European projects. 00:26:07:18 - 00:26:20:05 Louise Moody But we also, as individual disciplines, had to to adapt our working methods, and that was very much something we had to work through the latter stages of our particular project. 00:26:20:17 - 00:26:33:22 Abigail Acton unexpected challenges and hurdles halfway through or whatever. Yeah, yeah, lots of people experiencing that. Andrew How did you feel about working with with designers coming from a background in chemistry and so on? 00:26:33:24 - 00:27:00:21 Andrew Cobley And there were a lot of aspects of design that I found really interesting actually. I found the whole idea of co-creation really interesting, and actually some of the approaches that I learned from from design are in fact transferable to scientific research. I mean, I later an applied research group. And what I mean by that is that we try and make research industrially relevant. 00:27:01:02 - 00:27:30:01 Andrew Cobley So for example, one of my PhD students a few years ago, she did a project on producing a magnetic catalyst, the same process that I've talked about already. We it was very successful project, but the idea behind that actually was that instead of using printing to, to put it down selectively, we could use the magnetic field. So it was very successful and we even got a pattern out of that and we took that to the commercial world for that reason. 00:27:30:03 - 00:27:57:00 Andrew Cobley Now we got a lot of interest, but they weren't interested because it was magnetic. They were interested in because it wasn't the precious metal catalyst. And so that kind of told us that, you know, if we'd done some sort of co-creation process, stop with relevant end users, an industry perhaps, where the sort of cycle says a lot of time and effort in making the catalyst magnetic and we could have focused on the no precious metals side of things. 00:27:57:00 - 00:27:59:18 Andrew Cobley So, you know, there are lessons to be learned there, I think. 00:27:59:22 - 00:28:09:22 Abigail Acton Yes, absolutely. Great. Elif any experiences that you've had working with people who, for example, don't normally come into contact with material or who don't normally come into contact with circuitry? 00:28:09:24 - 00:28:51:17 Elif Ozden Yenigun I mean, I know communication is challenging most of the time, but as a as an engineer, I struggle to talk to physicists, you know, I mean, so I know the challenge, but I find it quite fascinating. It does, because, you know, like if you just I don't know how dull pretend to discuss a textile process with a neat designer or a diva, you know, like you, they just basically show you how you can just basically hack the machine, which is, you know, like quite unlikely for for an engineer because it's the whole process as are quite automated. 00:28:51:19 - 00:29:25:24 Elif Ozden Yenigun But if you have a like a very specific specific function or very specific design, then these are the people that you need to go first because they know the tools much more than the engineers from time, and they can be much more open minded because their priorities are different, you know, like they do not talk about the efficiency or the optimization suggested, but they can just basically so, you know, how you can just basically create something unique based on the tools, based on the materials you have. 00:29:26:05 - 00:29:43:06 Elif Ozden Yenigun And they can work with very small quantities, which is quite important for, you know, like material scientists like me, because they are not always, you know, like able to produce like kilograms of, I don't know, nanomaterials, which is quite important. 00:29:43:08 - 00:29:56:08 Abigail Acton No, that's great. So basically it's I suppose it's a completely different approach that then makes you rethink your own. Well, thank you very, very much, all of you. Thanks for your time. That was really interesting and I am grateful for you having appeared. 00:29:56:10 - 00:29:58:19 ALL Thank you so much. Thank you. 00:30:00:18 - 00:30:24:16 Abigail Acton Goodbye, everyone. Are you interested in what other EU funded projects are doing in the realm of smart textiles? The Cordis website will give you an insight into the results of projects funded by the Horizon 2020 program that are working in this area. The website has articles and interviews that explore the results of research being conducted in a very broad range of domains in subjects from quarks to quails. 00:30:24:16 - 00:30:48:07 Abigail Acton There's something there for you. Maybe you're involved in a project or would like to apply for funding. Take a look at what others are doing in your domain. So come and check out the research that's revealing what makes our world tick. We're always happy to hear from you. Drop us a line editorial at Cordis dot Europa Dot EU Until next time.

Spunti e idee

Cellulari, orologi, anelli che tengono traccia del sonno: la tecnologia assume forme sempre più varie e le aziende si impegnano a rendere le ultime innovazioni desiderabili per il pubblico. Il mondo della tecnologia assistiva, però, non punta ancora a questa caratteristica e produce dispositivi progettati per la loro utilità piuttosto che per la comodità o lo stile. È difficile entusiasmarsi per un oggetto brutto alla vista o poco maneggevole: un dispositivo ideato per proteggere chi lo indossa potrebbe così rimanere sul fondo di un cassetto.

L’episodio di oggi presenta alcuni progetti che lavorano alla creazione di design incentrati sull’utente, si concentrano sulla metallizzazione e sulla conducibilità dei tessuti o, ancora, studiano il modo per incorporare antenne di grafene nei prodotti tessili per aiutare le persone con Alzheimer.

Scopriremo come i tessuti intelligenti di prossima generazione superano i limiti tecnici e danno vita a dispositivi di ottima fattura che invogliano le persone a utilizzarli, aiutandole a rimanere indipendenti a casa propria.

Louise Moody, professoressa di design sanitario e fattori umani presso l’Università di Coventry, ha attinto alla sua esperienza nell’ambito della psicologia e del design incentrato sull’utente per contribuire al progetto MATUROLIFE.

Andrew Cobley, professore di deposizione elettrochimica e responsabile del Gruppo per i materiali e la chimica funzionali presso l’Università di Coventry, ha sfruttato le proprie competenze nella metallizzazione elettrochimica di materiali non conduttivi per produrre i prototipi del medesimo progetto.

Incontreremo inoltre Elif Ozden Yenigun, professoressa associata di Tessuti presso il Royal College of Art. La sua ricerca è incentrata sulla progettazione di materiali molecolari e sugli approcci innovativi alla produzione tessile, che ha approfondito nell’ambito del progetto GFSMART. Il suo lavoro ha inoltre trovato applicazione nei settori della moda, automobilistico e aerospaziale.

Ci piacerebbe conoscere la vostra opinione!

Saremo lieti di leggere tutti i commenti che vorrete sottoporci. Inviateci pareri, domande o suggerimenti (speriamo nessuna lamentela!) all’indirizzo e-mail abituale: [e-mail].

Parole chiave

CORDIScovery, CORDIS, MATUROLIFE, GFSMART, tessuti intelligenti, antenna, grafene, metallizzazione, conducibilità, tessuto, tecnologia assistiva