E-textiles: Fiber computer; biodegradable sensor fabric; RF antenna blanket.
Researchers from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Rhode Island School of Design, and Brown University developed a programmable elastic fiber computer that could be woven into clothing to monitor health conditions and physical activity. Clothing created using the fiber computer was reported as comfortable and machine washable.
The single elastic fiber computer contains a series of microdevices, including sensors, a microcontroller, digital memory, Bluetooth modules, optical communications, and a battery, explained MIT’s Adam Zewe in a press release. “The researchers added four fiber computers to a top and a pair of leggings, with the fibers running along each limb. In their experiments, each independently programmable fiber computer operated a machine-learning model that was trained to autonomously recognize exercises performed by the wearer, resulting in an average accuracy of about 70%.” Accuracy increased to nearly 95% when the individual fiber computers could communicate with each other.
The fiber computer will soon be deployed in a real-world test when U.S. Army and Navy service members conduct a monthlong winter research mission to the Arctic while wearing base layer merino mesh shirts with fiber computers to collect health and activity information. [1]
Researchers from the University of the West of England Bristol, University of Southampton, University of Bath, University of Leeds, and University of Cambridge used inkjet-printing to create biodegradable wearable electronic textiles.
The design has three layers: a sensing layer, a layer to interface with the sensors, and a base fabric. A biodegradable textile made from renewable wood, called Tencel, was used for the base. The active electronics are made from graphene and the polymer PEDOT: PSS, which were inkjet-printed onto the fabric.
In tests, swatches of the fabric connected to monitoring equipment and attached to gloves worn by study participants were found to reliably measure both heart rate and temperature. In a biodegradability test, a sample buried for four months lost 48% of its weight and 98% of its strength, with a lifecycle assessment of the graphene-based electrodes showing up to 40 times less impact on the environment than standard electrodes. [2]
Researchers from Columbia University, North Carolina State University, and City University of New York created lightweight, flexible RF antennas that can be knit into a blanket.
Using commercially available metallic and dielectric yarns, existing knitting machinery, and a technique called float-jacquard knitting in which two or more types of yarn are used to produce a pattern, the team produced two prototype reflectarray devices, a metasurface lens (metalens), and a vortex-beam generating device. The one-square-meter prototypes were created in about 45 minutes and withstood both repeated washing and stretching on a frame.
In experiments, the researchers found that when the metalens operates as a receiving antenna, it focuses an incident centimeter-wave into a tight (diffraction-limited) focal spot, and that when it operates as a transmitting antenna, it converts the divergent emission from a horn antenna into a highly directional beam. They were also able to perform more complex wavefront shaping tasks, including creation of a beam with a corkscrew-shaped wavefront. Next, the team plans to explore other modern knitting techniques. [3]
[1] Gupta, N., Cheung, H., Payra, S. et al. A single-fibre computer enables textile networks and distributed inference. Nature (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08568-6
[2] Dulal, M., Modha, H.R.M., Liu, J. et al. Sustainable, Wearable, and Eco-Friendly Electronic Textiles. Energy Environ. Mater. e12854. (2025) https://doi.org/10.1002/eem2.12854
[3] Carter, M. J., Resneck, L., Ra’di, Y. et al. Flat-Knit, Flexible, Textile Metasurfaces. Adv. Mater. 2024, 36, 2312087. https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202312087
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