Wearable Electronic Network Made from Discrete Parts

From a military standpoint, the ubiquitous incorporation of electronics as standard issue equipment for modern war fighters will undoubtedly increase exponentially in the near future. Information will need to be gathered, coalesced, and rapidly presented to the soldier in order to establish and maintain a decisive tactical advantage. In order to accomplish this in an efficient manner, Infoscitex (IST) is proposing to develop a method for fabricating a broadloom mesh network and allowing electrical connections to be formed across discontinuities in the final garment (Figure 1). This effort will involve the selection of e-textile yarns that demonstrate the appropriate electrical and mechanical properties, and the weaving of these yarns into the rip-stop layers of a broadloom fabric. Techniques will also be developed for making electrical connections that bridge seam boundaries to form continuous network paths, shielding these paths from electromagnetic interference, and allowing for the integration of external electronic devices into the network. The accomplishment of these objectives will form the centerpiece of an e-textile toolkit that will parallel the development of the circuit board in the electronics industry.