Smart ‘everyday’ clothing can capture and record your body’s movement

Everyday clothing might soon capture and record your body movements, thanks to groundbreaking research from the Universities of Bath and Bristol.

Conductive threads, stitched into garment seams, create electrical circuits that change resistance with your body's movements. This innovation opens new possibilities for digital clothing, offering more precise movement sensing than current phones and smartwatches.

This concept, detailed in a paper presented at the Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference in Copenhagen, lays the groundwork for e-textile designers and clothing manufacturers to develop cutting-edge garments. These garments could significantly enhance exercise routines, physiotherapy, and rehabilitation.

Dr. Adwait Sharma from the University of Bath's Department of Computer Science explained, "Our research focuses on integrating technology into everyday clothing to track the effectiveness of physiotherapy exercises done at home. Correctly performing these exercises is crucial for injury recovery, but it's hard to know if you're doing them right on your own."

SeamSleeve, the technology developed by the team, enables physiotherapists to monitor your progress remotely.

Dr. Sharma highlighted that current fitness trackers often lack the detail needed for physiotherapy. SeamSleeve, covering the entire arm, captures crucial movement data. "We've successfully developed a working system based on machine learning to track 12 different arm exercises using SeamSleeve," he said. "This paves the way for exciting future applications in remote physiotherapy and exercise monitoring."

Professor Mike Fraser from the University of Bristol’s School of Computer Science expressed enthusiasm about the potential for clothing manufacturers to adopt these designs. "We've demonstrated that common overlocked seams in standard garment construction can effectively sense movement," he noted. The design also pairs the seam with a charging coil, drawing energy wirelessly from a mobile phone in your pocket, eliminating the need for a separate power source.

This innovation means advanced motion-sensing garments could be produced without altering existing manufacturing processes. Smartphone apps using advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques can then use this movement data to match body movements to specific postures or gestures, such as physiotherapeutic exercises.

This new technology not only has the potential to revolutionize personal fitness tracking but also offers a promising tool for medical applications, ensuring that you can maintain proper form and receive accurate feedback, all through the clothes you wear every day.

Note: Materials provided above by the The Brighter Side of News. Content may be edited for style and length.

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