During the last ten years the
traditional textile industry, that during the decades has favoured quality, has
changed its strategy to support the innovation and the creation of new products
and functionalities. This inversion of situation has allowed the consolidation
of the emergence of two areas:"Technical Textiles" and "Smart
Textiles and Interactive Fabrics (SFIT)".
The present document aims to relate
the several major advances and related products which appear with the
blossoming of intelligent textiles.
I. Introduction
Intelligent textiles represent the
next generation of fibres, fabrics and articles produced from them. They can be
described as textile materials that think for themselves, for example through
the incorporation of electronic devices or smart materials. Many intelligent
textiles already feature in advanced types of clothing, principally for protection
and safety and for added fashion or convenience.
One of the main reasons for the
rapid development of intelligent textiles is the important investment make by
the military industry. This is because they are used in different projects such
as extreme winter condition jackets or uniforms that change colour so as to
improve camouflage effects. Nowadays, the military industry has become aware of
the advantage of sharing knowledge with the various industrial sectors, because
with joint collaboration far better results can be obtained through team-work.
Intelligent textiles provide ample
evidence of the potential and enormous wealth of opportunities still to be
realised in the textile industry in the fashion and clothing sector, as well as
in the technical textiles sector. Moreover, these developments will be the
result of active collaboration between people from a whole variety of
backgrounds and disciplines: engineering, science, design, process development,
and business and marketing. Our very day-to-day lives will, within the next few
years, be significantly regulated by intelligent devices and many of these
devices will be in textiles and clothing.
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Originally published in New Cloth Market; June 2009
