Summary
- Profile Type
- Technology offer
- POD Reference
- TOSI20231025008
- Term of Validity
- 26 October 2023 - 25 October 2025
- Company's Country
- Slovenia
- Type of partnership
- Research and development cooperation agreement
- Commercial agreement with technical assistance
- Investment agreement
- Targeted Countries
- All countries
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General information
- Short Summary
- Smart textiles have great potential in the fields of sport science and medicine, and even in the entertainment industry (e.g. motion-capture technology). This technology enhances that potential, by creating a 3D digital twin of a smart textile, enabling measurement of deformation and movement of the smart textile as it is worn.
- Full Description
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The technology provides a real-time monitoring of surface deformations from measurements of changes in the electromagnetic characteristics of conductive fibers of elastic textiles during their stretching and shrinking. The reconstructed 3D geometry allows for mimicking the behavior of the textile in virtual environment and analyzing causal forces accurately, thus, opening the door for numerous new applications in the entertainment industry, medicine, and sports.
The developed system provides accurate reconstruction of 3D surface after the deformation of the textile by measuring electromagnetic characteristics, such as electric current, conductivity, or resistance. These are than transformed into the distances between measurement points and used to iteratively update the positions of the vertices of the schematic 3D model in virtual environment, thus, achieving its 3D reconstruction. As elastic textiles conform to objects and forces acting on them, the developed system can be used, amongst others, for motion tracking, monitoring body muscles, monitoring forces between objects, and monitoring movements of objects placed on top of the textile. - Advantages and Innovations
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The technology takes advantage of the very nature of smart textiles, that they are an interwoven mesh of electrical or conductive fibres. Co-ordinates can be derived from the intersections of these fibres, providing physical measuring points in space in a 3D computer model. When force is applied to the textile, for example, as it stretches while being worn over a body part, the distances between the co-ordinates change, which can be measured and applied to the 3D model in real-time.
The technology offers a great replacement for tensiomyography, a technique for measuring muscle contraction frequently used in sports medicine and rehabilitation. A conventional tensiomyography machine is a bulky piece of equipment and, furthermore, can only take single point measurements across the muscle. A smart textile has many points of measurement – literally every intersection of the fibres – and can be worn and therefore moved in naturally (as opposed to lying down for a tensiomyographic measurement). Similarly, in the entertainment setting, motion-capture technology relies on point markers and how they reflect light. With a smart textile, many more data points offer a much better resolution.
Lastly, the 3D twin-generating software can be applied to any kind of smart textile, meaning many more applications may be possible in the future. - Stage of Development
- Available for demonstration
- Sustainable Development Goals
- Goal 3: Good Health and Well-being
- IPR status
- IPR applied but not yet granted
Partner Sought
- Expected Role of a Partner
- Possible licensor is sought as partner, ideally producers of smart textiles in sports and fitness industry. Also, research and development partners are sought to further develop the product.
- Type and Size of Partner
- R&D Institution
- Big company
- SME 50 - 249
- SME <=10
- SME 11-49
- Type of partnership
- Research and development cooperation agreement
- Commercial agreement with technical assistance
- Investment agreement
Dissemination
- Technology keywords
- 11007 - Sports and Leisure
- Market keywords
- 05007007 - Other medical/health related (not elsewhere classified)
- 05007004 - Monitoring equipment
- Sector Groups Involved
- Digital
- Targeted countries
- All countries
