Wang Yingqiang, Sun Chaochao, Ahmed Daniel
Acoustic Robotic Systems Lab (ARSL), Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems, ETH Zurich, Rüschlikon, Switzerland.
Nat Electron. 2025;8(6):485-495. doi: 10.1038/s41928-025-01386-2. Epub 2025 May 19.
Wearable electronics, such as smart textiles, are of potential use in healthcare monitoring, human-machine interfaces and environmental analysis. However, the scalability and reliability of the technology is restricted due to challenges related to rapid material degradation, potential toxicity, high production costs and heavy computational workload. Here we report an acoustic-based smart textile technology. The approach, which we term SonoTextiles, uses piezoelectric transducers that are mounted at both ends of glass microfibres and act as transmitters and receivers of acoustic waves. The flexible glass microfibres act as acoustic waveguides and are embedded into the textile substrate, providing precise sensing by measuring wave propagation and energy loss along the fibre in response to stimuli such as touch and bending. We also use acoustic frequency selectivity and frequency-domain signal processing algorithms to enhance computational efficiency. Our acoustic textile is breathable, durable and stable under thermal fluctuations, and we show that it can be used in distributed tactile sensing, hand gesture recognition and respiratory rate monitoring.
可穿戴电子产品，如智能纺织品，在医疗监测、人机接口和环境分析方面具有潜在用途。然而，由于与材料快速降解、潜在毒性、高生产成本和繁重计算工作量相关的挑战，该技术的可扩展性和可靠性受到限制。在此，我们报告一种基于声学的智能纺织技术。我们将这种方法称为声控纺织技术（SonoTextiles），它使用安装在玻璃微纤维两端的压电换能器，作为声波的发射器和接收器。柔性玻璃微纤维充当声波导管，并嵌入纺织基体中，通过测量纤维上的波传播和能量损失来响应触摸和弯曲等刺激，从而提供精确传感。我们还使用声频选择性和频域信号处理算法来提高计算效率。我们的声学纺织品透气、耐用且在热波动下稳定，并且我们证明它可用于分布式触觉传感、手势识别和呼吸速率监测。
