This Programmable Smart Fabric, Made from Recycled Plastics, Changes Through Heat, Electricity
Novel material, inspired by biomimicry, could offer temperature-based haptics in virtual worlds or act as a wearable or implantable sensor.
Researchers from Jiangnan University and the University of Waterloo have developed a programmable smart fabric that responds to both temperature and electricity — and envision it being used in everything from clothing that actively warms you as you walk to haptic feedback in virtual worlds.
"As a wearable material alone, it has almost infinite potential in AI [Artificial Intelligence], robotics and virtual reality games and experiences," claims Milad Kamkar, PhD, chemical engineering professor and co-corresponding author of the paper describing the material. "Imagine feeling warmth or a physical trigger eliciting a more in-depth adventure in the virtual world."
The team's material is a shape-memory fabric, which can spring back to its original shape once deformed — but unlike most rival materials, does so through the application of electricity or heat rather than just one or the other. Applying either also changes its color, while its exact response can be tailored during the design process — allowing it to, for example, only react in selected areas.
Built from polymer nano-composite fibers made from recycled plastic and woven stainless steel, the smart fabric works at voltages down to 5V and has been proven through the creation of simple prototypes including a slowly-flapping dragonfly — changing color from red to blue while opening and closing its wings.
"The idea of these intelligent materials was first bred and born from biomimicry science," says Kamkar of the project. "Through the ability to sense and react to environmental stimuli such as temperature, this is proof of concept that our new material can interact with the environment to monitor ecosystems without damaging them."
The team's next step is to improve the material's shape-change performance for robotics applications, with a view to building a robot which can carry and transfer a payload to complete tasks.
The team's work has been published under open-access terms in the journal Small.