These smart materials are incorporated into the textile structure by different technologies (Figure 1).

Components and interconnections are intrinsic to the fabric and thus are less visible and not susceptible of becoming tangled or snagged by surrounding objects.

E-textiles can also more easily adapt to fast changes in the computational and sensing requirements of any specific application, this one representing a useful feature for power management and context awareness.

The vision behind wearable computing foresees future electronic systems to be an integral part of our everyday outfits.

Such electronic devices have to meet special requirements concerning wearability.

Wearable systems will be characterized by their ability to automatically recognize the activity and the behavioral status of their own user as well as of the situation around herhim, and to use this information to adjust the systems configuration and functionality.

This review focuses on recent advances in the field of Smart Textiles and pays particular attention to the materials and their manufacturing process.

Each technique shows advantages and disadvantages and our aim is to highlight a possible trade-off between flexibility, ergonomics, low power consumption, integration and eventually autonomy.

Smart Textiles are defined as textile products such as fibers and filaments, yarns together with woven, knitted or non-woven structures, which can interact with the environmentuser.

The convergence of textiles and electronics (e-textiles) can be relevant for the development of smart materials that are capable of accomplishing a wide spectrum of functions, found in rigid and non-flexible electronic products nowadays.

They integrate a high level of intelligence and can be divided into three subgroups.

The actuators act upon the detected signal either autonomously or from a central control unit 1; together with the sensors, they are the essential element for active smart materials.

The fabric sensors can be used for electrocardiogram (ECG) 3, electromyography (EMG) 4, and electroencephalography (EEG) 5,6 sensing; fabrics incorporating thermocouples can be used for sensing temperature 7; luminescent elements integrated in fabrics could be used for biophotonic sensing 8; shape-sensitive fabrics can sense movement, and can be combined with EMG sensing to derive muscle fitness 9.

Carbon electrodes integrated into fabrics can be used to detect specific environmental or biomedical features such as oxygen, salinity, moisture, or contaminants 10,11.

All electronic devices require power, and this is a significant design challenge for Smart Fabrics.

Power generation can be achieved through piezoelectric 15 elements that harvest energy from motion or photovoltaic elements 16.

Human interfaces to active systems can be roughly grouped into two categories: input devices and annunciation or display devices.

Input devices can include capacitive patches that function as pushbuttons 17, or shape-sensitive fabrics 18 that can record motion or flexing, pressure, and stretching or compression.

Fabrics can also include elements that provide bio-feedback 21 or simply vibrate.

Fabric-based antennas are a relatively simple application of Smart Fabrics.

Simple fabric antennas are merely conductive yarns of specific lengths that can be stitched or woven into non-conducting fabrics 22.

In a second phase, it is to be considered in which way these smart materials can be processed into a textile material.

Wearable Antenna Seminar