Since the beginning of mankind, clothing has been a way to cover our bodies of course. As the years progressed, clothing became much more than that. It turned into ways people could express their feelings. Although fashion continues to live on, a new technology advancement has found a way for clothing to “listen” to heartbeats.
“Acoustic fabrics have existed for perhaps hundreds of years, but they’re used to dampen sound,” says Wei Yan, a scientist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Yan also adds on by saying, “fabric as a microphone is a totally different concept.”
Yan says he and his team got the idea from the way a human’s eardrums function. The acoustic clothing converts vibrations into electrical signals, similar to how the eardrum works. “It turns out that the eardrum’s inner layer is made out of fibers,” says Yoel Fink, a material scientist working with Wei Yan. Taking this trait from the Eardrums, Yan and his team were able to figure out that this phenomenon could be implemented into clothing.
The way it works in clothing is that a special material called Twaron is woven together with the cotton fibers. In between the materials, is a thin strand of piezoelectric material which produces voltage whenever it is pressed or bent. The buckling and bending of this fiber can create electrical signals which are sent through a tiny circuit board that comprehends and reports the voltage. The special fabric used is sensitive to a variety of noise levels. However, it continues to investigate what signal processing is required to untangle the targeted sounds from background noise. In addition, the unique fabric continues to work as a microphone even after it has been washed 10 times. Yan also adds, “the sound-sensing fabric feels like regular fabric,” implying that it will still feel comfortable to wear.
The team incorporated the technology into a t-shirt. It was able to hear its wearer’s heartbeat just like a stethoscope would. When used this way, it “[can] be able to provide information similar to an ultrasound of the heart,” and it “proves effective as [any other] monitoring and diagnostic tool,” says Vijay Thakur, a material scientist at Scotland’s Rural College.
In conclusion, this new technology has so many benefits that are readily available. For years, fabrics have been a way to provide beauty and warmth, but fabrics might be able to help us medically and technologically improve as well. With this new invention, doctors and scientists can help determine patients’ problems in a fast and easy manner.
Written by: Abishek Kanthan
Date: May 23, 2022
Sources:
Article – https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fabric-hear-heartbeat-fiber-vibration-voltage-sound-material
