A team of researchers has developed a cheaper, scalable, and automated method to manufacture advanced textiles with unlimited size and shape. Even more impressive, the textiles can be woven using existing industrial looms that create everyday fabrics.
The work builds on prior research in which the team produced a large-scale, 46-in. smart textile display using a specialized loom. Exhibiting full freedom of form — meaning it could be bent, rolled, or folded into any shape — the device was the first of its kind.
Now, the researchers have shown that such devices can also be generated on an industrial scale utilizing the textile industry’s existing infrastructure. They consider this process a new technology platform for manufacturing electronics and optoelectronics.
“[Textile] companies have well-established manufacturing lines with high-throughput fiber extruders and large weaving machines that can weave a meter square of textiles automatically,” says Sanghyo Lee, study first author and researcher at Univ. of Cambridge’s Dept. of Engineering. “So, when we introduce the smart fiber to the process, the result is basically an electronic system that is manufactured exactly the same way other textiles are manufactured.”
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