The main objective of the cluster is to bring together EC projects addressing the area of Smart Fabrics, Interactive Textile (SFIT) and flexible wearable systems, in order to:
The cluster deals with integration of technologies and functionalities, systems and several applications e.g. health, well being, protection, disaster management.
Seven projects started the cluster on smart textile and flexible wearable systems and applications: MyHeart, BIOTEX, PROETEX, STELLA, OFSETH, CONTEXT and MERMOTH. The integration of, advanced fibres and materials at the fibre core, microelectronics components, user interfaces (e.g. sensors, displays, speakers), power sources and embedded software, make R&D extremely challenging. In addition, SFIT & Flexible Wearable Systems should fulfil user needs and expectations in terms of user-friendliness/functionality, cost, fabric resistance, comfort, robustness and reliable and accurate performance. One of the challenges today is to fuse the research work and consumer insights on Smart Clothing and create multidisciplinary teams of product designers and engineers. The field is growing very rapidly in conjunction with the wearable electronics, platforms, networked sensors, etc.
The cluster will be expanded with FP7 projects and seeks collaboration with other Commission services and projects active in related SFIT fields.
The experience gained in the SFIT projects by the project partners has allowed an increase of the collaboration between the projects, e.g. several technical results of the WEALTHY project in the field of textile sensors, acquisition and processing electronics and user comfort as well as system wearability have been extended in the frame of MyHeart and in PROETEX. Another example is the use of some results of the BIOTEX project in PROETEX, such as electrolyte sensing in sweat and optical biochemical sensing.
SYSTEX, a FP7 Collaboration Action, aims at implementing several goals of the Cluster by bringing together the achievements and competencies of these EC projects as well as the of the other national and international projects. At this moment, SYSTEX succeeded in setting up such an inter project cooperation between STELLA and PROETEX: STELLA will produce stretchable electronics that will be integrated in the PROETEX suit for testing.
The cluster is represented by the following scheme: it starts with "physiological parameter-oriented projects" (WEALTHY, MyHeart, MERMOTH and OFSETH) relying on textile-embedded sensors, it adds biosensing (BIOTEX), extends in the combination of the sensed signals (e.g. PROETEX) and beyond.
Up to four concertation workshops per year have been planned to assess the concertation work among the cluster members.
The objective of the concertation workshops is to offer overall strategic guidance and orientation on the one hand and improve the performance of the individual projects on the other hand by maximizing the possibilities for interaction with other projects and stakeholders in the domain. The project presentations can be downloaded from the Projects page.