E-textiles

    E-textiles, also known as electronic textiles or smart textiles, are  fabrics  that enable  computing,  digital  components, and electronics to be embedded in them. Part of the development of wearable technology, they are known as intelligent clothing or smart clothing  because they allow for the incorporation of built-in technological elements in everyday textiles and clothes. Electronic textiles do not strictly encompass wearable computing  because emphasis is placed on the seamless integration between the fabric and the electronic elements, such as cables, microcontrollers, sensors and actuators. The field of embedding advanced electronic components onto textile fibers is sometimes called fibertronics.

 

    One of the pioneers in electronic textiles is Rehmi Post, a Visiting Scientist at the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, who earned his M.Sc. at the MIT Media Lab for the development of e-broidery, a means of fabricating electronic circuitry on wash-and-wear textile substrates. Examples of his pioneering work in this field have appeared widely in museum collections, including a long-term loan to the Welcome Wing of London's Museum of Science