CSR: Medium: Systems Abstractions for Self-Powered Smart Textiles

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An exciting new direction for ubiquitous computing is the ability to weave sensors and user interface elements directly into textiles. Recent advances have demonstrated several capabilities including energy harvesting, sensing, communication, and interaction using threads coated with different polymers. But the design of smart textiles that integrate these different elements presents challenges in hardware design, software architecture, and in the design of adaptive algorithms that can deal with energy variability. The project objective is to develop the systems principles and building blocks to enable such self-powered textile-based sensing applications. This project seeks to design a self-powered, textile-based whole body sensing and interaction system that is burden-free and non-intrusive. We describe a vertically integrated stack including thread-level optimizations, hardware architecture design, and run-time systems to enable our vision. The project has four thrusts: (a) methods to optimize textile-based energy harvesting and sensing; (b) system architecture for modular harvesting-based textiles; (c) runtime systems for self-powered textiles; and (d) application-driven evaluation and characterization in the context of elder care. This work provides the foundations for future smart textiles that can enable truly ubiquitous smart computing and sensing. The enabling technologies in our work will impact a range of applications including human computer interactions, health and wellness, sports analytics, and manufacturing. The project will provide mentoring and internship opportunities for students at the Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) Starter Academy at Springfield Technical Community College to fortify the number of underrepresented students in chemistry and computing. This project will also support an annual workshop for middle school girls in partnership with Girls Inc. of Holyoke, MA; these workshops have been held for several years, and will continue with new modules based on the work on this project. All data produced as a result of this project, including trace data, software code, simulation data, and publications, will be made publicly available at the project repository: http://sensors.cs.umass.edu/projects/textile/. The data and the resulting research outputs will be maintained using appropriate methods for at least five years after the end of the project.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.