Design and Manufacturing of E-textiles for Wearable Healthcare

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Healthcare is moving towards remote and personalised monitoring and therapy to enable individuals to continuously manage their health and stay healthy for longer. E-textile based wearable products enable the unobtrusive and ubiquitous deployment of smart monitoring systems and the delivery of personalised therapies. E-textile products can also interface with other advanced technologies (e.g. telemedicine, digital healthcare) to become an integral part of an ecosystem to deliver healthcare at home supported by remote consultation.This project aims to design and develop an e-textile product for monitoring knee function and to strengthen thigh muscles through collaboration with a business partner. This project is built on the team's 15 years of e-textile research. It is underpinned by the e-textiles healthcare technologies developed in an MRC project and the wearable systems developed in an EPSRC project.The product includes an e-garment with embedded electrodes and sensing yarns, a detachable electronic control, and an app user interface. The project design will address user and market needs, manufacturing requirements, and regulatory compliance which are essential for the success of a healthcare product. The project team will work closely with end users (patients and healthcare professionals) to co-design the product. Different iterations will be designed to address user feedback. Success of the project will lead to an innovative product with embedded sensing yarns and electrodes for monitoring knee joint movement and muscle strengthening. It will demonstrate knowledge exchange and technology transfer through collaboration between academia and industry. The research team will also explore the application of e-textile technologies in other healthcare applications. This project will support a longer term goal to establish an enterprise unit in the area of e-textile design and development leveraging university's expertise in textile and garment design, electronics, e-textiles and facilities for prototyping and manufacturing.