I know: you’re pretty proud for being into “wearables” to help monitor your health and other functions. You’ve got some apps on your smartphone. You use a smartwatch. Maybe you’ve tried one of the many iterations of smart glasses, like Google Glass or Meta’s Ray Bans. You were disappointed when Humane’s AI pin bit the dust.
What, you've never seen a fiber computer? Credit: Hamilton Osoy, IFM
Forget all
that. With fiber computing, your clothes can be your wearable.
A new paper from MIT researchers discussed the ability to use “single fiber computers” that can be woven directly into clothing. According to the MIT press release:
The fiber computer contains a series of microdevices, including sensors, a microcontroller, digital memory, bluetooth modules, optical communications, and a battery, making up all the necessary components of a computer in a single elastic fiber.It also has embedded lithium-ion batteries that power it.
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| You can see the LEDs. Credit: Yoel Fink/MIT News |
The lab has had many accomplishments, but the mismatch between the shape of a chip and the shape of a fiber became a problem. Co-lead author Nikhil Gupta, an MIT materials science and engineering graduate student explains the problem:
But we hit a wall in terms of the complexity of the devices we could incorporate into the fiber because of how we were making it. We had to rethink the whole process. At the same time, we wanted to make it elastic and flexible so it would match the properties of traditional fabrics.
The
solution: “In this new design, the researchers map the 2D pad alignment of each
microdevice to a 3D layout using a flexible circuit board called an interposer,
which they wrapped into a cylinder.” Mr. Gupta says: “This advance was crucial
for us in terms of being able to incorporate higher functionality computing
elements, like the microcontroller and Bluetooth sensor, into the fiber.”
The result
is a machine-washable, elastic fiber that can stretch more than 60 percent
without failure, Try that with your smartwatch.
These advances
allow them to build these fiber computers into clothing. Each fiber computer
incorporates LEDs and light sensors that enable multiple fibers in one garment
to communicate, creating a textile network that can perform computation. They
also have a Bluetooth communication system that can stream information
wirelessly to other devices, such as a smartphone.
Why clothing? Professor Fink points out:
Our bodies broadcast gigabytes of data through the skin every second in the form of heat, sound, biochemicals, electrical potentials, and light, all of which carry information about our activities, emotions, and health. Unfortunately, most — if not all — of it gets absorbed and then lost in the clothes we wear. Wouldn’t it be great if we could teach clothes to capture, analyze, store, and communicate this important information in the form of valuable health and activity insights?
Well, they
did. They added four fiber computers to a top and a pair of leggings, and had
the wearer perform various exercises, such as squats, planks, arm circles, and
lunges. Using a machine-learning model, each such fiber computer recognized the
exercises with an average accuracy of about 70%; when the four fibers were
allowed to communicate, the accuracy went up to 95%.
Professor
Fink says that this demonstrates “the importance of residing on multiple body
areas and forming a network between autonomous fiber computers that does not
need wires and interconnects.” He predicts: “In the not-too-distant future,
fiber computers will allow us to run apps and get valuable health care and
safety services from simple everyday apparel.”
We’ll soon
find out. The team is working with DARPA, the Army, and the Navy to conduct
tests in the Artic. Service members will wear shirts with fiber computers in a
monthlong winter study, tracking their health and activity over 1000 kilometers
and an average temperature of – 40F.
Again, try
that with your smartwatch.
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| They're wearing fiber computers. Credit: US Army Cold Regions Research and Engineering Lab |
“As a leader with more than a decade of Arctic operational experience, one of my main concerns is how to keep my team safe from debilitating cold weather injuries — a primary threat to operators in the extreme cold,” says U.S. Army Major Mathew Hefner, the commander of the project. “Conventional systems just don’t provide me with a complete picture. We will be wearing the base layer computing fabrics on us 24/7 to help us better understand the body’s response to extreme cold and ultimately predict and prevent injury.”
Karl Friedl, U.S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine senior research scientist of performance physiology, says the technology may become a “gamechanger for everyday lives.” He goes on to add:
Imagine near-term fiber computers in fabrics and apparel that sense and respond to the environment and to the physiological status of the individual, increasing comfort and performance, providing real-time health monitoring and providing protection against external threats. Soldiers will be the early adopters and beneficiaries of this new technology, integrated with AI systems using predictive physiological models and mission-relevant tools to enhance survivability in austere environments.
Professor
Finks is excited: “We are excited to see glimpses of this future in the
upcoming Arctic mission through our partners in the U.S. Army, Navy, and DARPA.
Helping to keep our service members safe in the harshest environments is a
honor and privilege.”
We’re not
quite in this future yet. The fiber computers don’t have much memory or
computing power, and it’s not clear how they would be recharged. There are
going to be real-world setbacks. Mass production and cost haven’t yet been
considerations. But, Professor Finks believes: “The convergence of classical
fibers and fabrics with computation and machine learning has only begun.”
Let it
begin.
