I participated in this project during my first year of the Creative Technology master's degree with two other second-year and Ph.D students, Marie Julou and Madalina Nicolae. Participating in the implementation of the different sensors allowed me to learn basic electronics.

CatSuit is an easy-to-make e-textile platform. Fully integrated textile-based sensors detect touch, position, and meshes deformation. This project presents playful applications of e-textile. CatSuit aims to make e-textile technology more accessible to non-professionals.

GitHub - MarieJulou/CatSuit: CatSuit is an easy-to-make e-textile platform. Fully integrated textile-based sensors detect touch, position, and meshes deformation. This project presents playful applications of e-textile. CatSuit aims to make e-textile technology more accessible to non-professionals.

CatSuit is an easy-to-make e-textile platform. Fully integrated textile-based sensors detect touch, position, and meshes deformation. This project presents playful applications of e-textile. CatSuit aims to make e-textile technology more accessible to non-professionals. - GitHub - MarieJulou/CatSuit: CatSuit is an easy-to-make e-textile platform. Fully integrated textile-based sensors detect touch, position, and meshes deformation.

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What are e-textiles?

Smart textiles, electronic textiles, or e-textiles, are fabrics infused with electronic components and functionality [1]. Their applications are:

• Health and Wellness: e-textiles can be used in the health and wellness industry to monitor vital signs, track physical activity, and detect changes in the body;
• Sports and Fitness: e-textiles can track athletes' performances and provide feedback on technique;
• Fashion: e-textiles allow interactive and responsive clothing, for new forms of self-expression and personalization. [2]

Three generations of e-textiles have gradually emerged.

1. Passive e-textiles, are simple conductive textiles that allowed for basic functions such as the creation of simple circuits (sensors, switch).
2. Active e-textiles, were more advanced and included electronic components such as LEDs, batteries, and microcontrollers. These textiles could be used to create garments that light up, change color, or react to environmental stimuli.
3. Functional e-textiles, are currently in development and have the potential to revolutionize the field of wearable technology. These textiles are capable of performing advanced functions such as biometric monitoring, energy harvesting, and data communication. [3]

Despite the significant progress of research on e-textile, the technology is restricted for non-expert users. Several barriers remain to the general public to access e-textiles, such as the cost, lack of learning platforms, comfort and durability. The cosplay/DIY community uses the most available form of non-commercial e-textile. By pursuing opportunities such as collaboration, education and standardization, e-textiles can become more accessible and practical to students.

Project Presentation

CatSuit aims to make the first and second e-textile generations more accessible to the general public. This project focuses on fast-prototyping practices. Sensors/displays conception request sewing and electronics techniques. They are easily accessible for beginners in both fields. Electronic materials are available on the Adafruit website and are frequently used in cosplay. Electronic boards are popular in DIY projects, and sewing materials are available in specialized shops and websites. CatSuit provides an essential understanding of electronics integration stakes and offers playful and artistic applications of e-textile, such as the tools to build a garment producing music with movements.

Project Details

Architecture Details

Different mechanical movement sensors capture the movements of the wearer. Microcontrollers used are ESP8266 Wemos Lolin D1 mini. They send this data to a server. An audio-visual feedback is released when the information is transmitted.

1. Two stretch sensors are on the right and left elbows to sense the stretch of the fabric when the elbow bends.
2. Inertial sensors are placed respectively on the bottom of the right and left deltoids and the middle of the rib cage. They measure the orientation of the arms and the torso.
3. Similarly, crumple sensors are placed at the ends of both sleeves. They measure the grip of the wearer's sleeve.

1. Stretch sensors

Stretch and crease sensors are very similar. Both have a resistance that plays out depending on the contact points. The sensor is achieved using a tight zigzag stitch with conductive thread in the bottom spool. Stretching the fabric increases the electrical resistance along the conducting wire [4]. The mesh opening breaks the parallel contact points, and the current flow is in series rather than parallel.

3. LED interfaces

The LEDs are off-the-shelf sewable LEDs from Adafruit [5], directly hand sewn on the fabric, on the sleeves and hood. The same design process as for the gyroscopic sensors is involved. At the moment they only have an aesthetic function but can easily be connected thanks to the integrated GEMMA microcontrollers [6].

2. Crumpling sensors

The conductive thread is sewn over an entire surface. The fabric folds on itself when it undergoes wrinkling. Consequently, contact points are created on the surface. These points allow the current to short-circuit the pattern. The resistance decreases accordingly.

4. Gyroscopic sensors

An accelerometer is a sensor measuring linear non-gravitational acceleration. Three off-the-shelf accelerometers from adafruit record acceleration and speed in the shoulder and torso area [7]. The design of the connector is hand-sketched and imported in DRAWings as a .png file. The image is vectorized, rescaled, and transformed in an ISO 301 stitch. The sensor is then embroidered upside-down using the same stitch on the outside surface of the sleeve.