A screen made of fibres: Singapore team weaves a touchscreen into a garment
Researchers at the National University of Singapore have integrated a touch-sensitive screen made of glowing fibres into clothing. According to the study, it survives 50 washes.
Archive image · Photo: ZKang123 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped and resized)
A team led by Assistant Professor Tural Khudiyev of the National University of Singapore (NUS) says it has built the first touchscreen into a garment. The study was published in the journal Nature on October 21. The display consists of 54 fibres, each about one millimetre thick with 96 LEDs. Together they form a 168 by 105 millimetre area with 96 × 54 pixels that plays video at 30 frames per second.
In total, the fabric contains more than 5,000 chips and over 20,000 electrical connections. Because each fibre has its own control channel, a fault does not take down the whole display, and several simultaneous touches can be registered. Additional fibres carry a microphone, a speaker and sensors for motion, temperature and brightness, among others.
After 50 detergent washes and 1,000 bends around a five-millimetre radius, light output and touch response were nearly unchanged, and breathability is comparable to cotton, polyester and denim, the team reports. Khudiyev names healthcare as a particularly promising application.