ECE: Electrical & Computer Engineering

E-textiles: Creating the future’s wearable, washable, potentially life-saving computers. The summer 2007 issue of Virginia Tech's Research Magazine features a cover story on ECE's e-Textiles group.

e-Rug:The e-Textile Laboratory is incorporating electronics into large surface areas, such as rugs and draperies. The rug prototype shown here was made with readily available electronic yarns and is being used as a testbed for tracking human gait. The rug lights up when the sensors are activated and has potential uses such as tracking people in low-visibility situations or directing traffic during evacuations.

"E-Textiles: Woven Computers" Researchers in the e-Textiles laboratory are weaving textiles with embedded wiring, sensors, actuators, and processing elements. Their research includes textiles for health monitoring, monitoring physical therapy, monitoring gait, and sound detection and localization.

"Computer engineers are developing clothes that monitor health: When style and comfort are not enough" Computer engineering professors Mark Jones and Tom Martin are developing clothes that can monitor chronic illness through body temperature, blood pressure, heart rates, breathing and even the way we walk. They dream of garments that can trigger paralyzed limbs to move and that can smooth the motions of patients with Parkinson’s Disease or Multiple Sclerosis. Their team in the department’s e-Textile Laboratory is merging computers and clothing. They are integrating ultra-fine, detergent-proof wiring into the very weave of the fabric and attaching the necessary miniature processors, sensors, and actuators.