Smart textiles? - How small sensors can help you stay healthy

Sensors are getting smaller and lighter, and yet their technological development allows ever new, innovative products with completely new possibilities - for example, smart textiles. By leaving sensors in the fabric and equipping it with special functions, a student and three students at the Department of Biomechatronics at TU Ilmenau developed an "intelligent T-shirt" that can monitor the movement of the spine. With their invention, the students won the "Competition of Students in Microsystems Applications" competition of the Association for Electrical, Electronic & Information Technologies VDE at the world's leading electronics trade fair electronica in Munich.

The concept of the intelligent T-shirt: Two small sensors, mounted in the T-shirt between the shoulder blades and above the coccyx in fabric pouches, record angular velocities and linear accelerations during movements. From these values, the electronics calculate the inclination and rotation of the spine during walking and wirelessly transmit the data collected by a microcontroller to a PC or smartphone for analysis.The new technology could be used in medical diagnostics in the future and protect against back injuries.