E-Textiles in the Apparel Factory: Leveraging Cut-and-Sew Technology toward the Next Generation of Smart Garments

The last 15-20 years have seen many signicant advances in the development of on-body technologies for sensing, interface, and communication. The state of the art in areas like human-computer interaction, signal processing, and context awareness has progressed dramatically since the rst crude prototypes. However, most of this progress has been primarily driven by the engineering community. Perhaps consequently, the development of manufacturing techniques has similarly focused on leveraging techniques and technologies well-established in production of small electronic devices. Aside from being a well-known and often convenient method of producing technology, in many ways this is a useful focus: electronic components and circuits benet signicantly from the structure of hard goods. Durability and reliability are dramatically improved when the electronic part of a system is well-structured and insulated, protected from wear and tear as well as moisture and other contaminants.