Our Textro-monitoring™ Systems
We have invented a new fabric-based system useful for monitoring motion, such as motion generated by a geometric change in the body surface in response to physiological activity like respiration and heart rate. The measurements are non-invasive do not require electrodes to contact the skin.

The new system consists of a fabric, which exhibits light transmission and reflection properties, that can be placed strategically in a garment. The amount of light transmitted thought the fabric relative to the amount of light reflected by the fabric changes when the fabric stretches in response to a dramatic motion like respiration or a subtle motion like the beating of the heart.

Other Textro-monitoring™ systems include methods for sensing the electrical signals generated by the body via textile electrodes in a unique design configuration which produces high quality signal sensing.

Integrating Wires and Plated Yarns Into Fabrics
The best approach is based on integrating wires and plated yarns into fabrics, but this approach has significant deficiencies related to the durability of the wires or conductive plating. For example, wires that are fine enough not to significantly impair the textile’s aesthetics are not durable enough to withstand elongation stresses normally encountered during textile manufacturing or use. The same is true for metal plated yarns, where the cladding develops stress cracks leading to failure when the yarns are strained.

Our Textro-yarns™
By inventing a new yarn structure, Textronics™ Inc has solved many of the problems associated with using wires and plated yarns in textiles. Using standard industry stretching and bending tests, our Textro-yarns™ maintain their properties beyond 25,000 cycles.

We can use this technology to create many different species of elastic conducting yarns with various physical and electrical properties. This flexibility in product design stems from the yarn’s underlying structure and because the yarns can be produced on standard textile processing equipment.

Variations
A variation of this technology can be used to incorporate other functional fibers, such as fiber optics, into elastic yarn structures.

Our Textro-polymers™
Our Textro-polymers, which can take the form of a fiber, a film, or a coating, provide a predictable dynamic conductivity change with stretch. In some of the embodiment or formulations developed, these composite materials undergo a change in resistance of over nine orders of magnitude. By adjusting the properties of the composite, we can alter the magnitude of the resistance change as well as the profile of the elongation response.

Typical Electrical Properties
The typical electrical properties achieved with this technology platform include the following:

Low resistivity in the relaxed state (< 10K Ohms)
High resistivity in the stretched state (> 1012 Ohms)
The ability to tailor the resistivity profile
Applications
Textro-polymer™ is appropriate for switches and controls that are activated by mechanical movements like bending, stretching, and tugging. For example:

Textile-based motion-activated switches and controls
Strain gauges
Motion sensors or motion detectors
Sports fitness motion sensing garments for training
Physical therapy or rehabilitation devices
Alternative device-activation mechanisms
Occupancy detection for car seats or beds

However, it is often necessary to combine multiple electronic components to create a larger, more functional piece of hardware. A well-known example is the personal computer, where many pieces of electronic hardware, such as the motherboard, hard drive, and power supply, are connected by flexible ribbon cables. By combining multiple conductive pathways into a single component, the electronics industry has significantly reduced manufacturing costs and handles a multitude of signal-processing issues with a very inexpensive solution that has become a standard across the industry.

Our Textro-interconnects™
The need to connect multiple conductive pathways of various subsystems in a simple and inexpensive way is an issue that also exists when creating electro-textile system solutions. Our solution differs significantly because our Textro-interconnects™ are fabric based and have elastic properties.

As with our conductive yarn platform, Textro-interconnects™ can also support a wide variety of product variants. They can be used to propagate electrical power, audio signals, and data pulses through multiple embedded conductive pathways. Unlike traditional ribbon cables or other rigid (non-elastic) textile structures, this flexible and elastic substrate offers both comfort and ease of incorporation in extant fabrics.