Engineering news
Engineers around the world are developing smart jackets, integrating technology into the apparel for applications such as medical assistance and energy efficiency.
German researchers from Fraunhofer IZM, a microsystems technology company in Berlin, have embedded flexible nanomaterial batteries into a jacket, which harvest energy that’s created with the movement of feet. The batteries provide very high power density to small systems, according to the researchers.
To ensure that the batteries created and stored energy safely and efficiently, effort had to be made to achieve pure crystal phases in order for the lithium-ion batteries to intercalate and de-intercalate during charging and discharging.
The researchers stated that the challenge they faced was ensuring the mechanical flexibility of the electronics and elasticity of the batteries to retain a textile structure. The researchers say the technology could be implemented in medical applications and should be ready for commercialisation in five years.
Meanwhile, a team of Ugandan engineers from Makerere University Kampala have created a biomedical smart jacket, with an accompanying mobile phone app, which diagnoses pneumonia in children.
The Mama-Ope (Mother’s Hope) kit can detects the disease and tracks the vitals while a child is wearing it.
Sensors on the jacket pick up sound patterns from the lungs, temperature and breathing rate. The information is then transferred to the app via Bluetooth were it is then assessed and compared to existing data to estimate the strength of the disease.
The smart jacket can diagnose pneumonia three times faster than doctors and reduces human error, according to the engineers. Doctors traditionally use stethoscopes to detect abnormal sounds originating from the lungs. Unfortunately, this method often results in the misdiagnosis of malaria or tuberculosis and the pneumonia is left untreated until it reaches a late stage. Pneumonia kills up to 24,000 Ugandan children under the age of five every year, many of whom are misdiagnosed with malaria, according to UNICEF.
The next step for the team is to pilot the kit prototype in Uganda’s hospitals and health centres. The app will also allow doctors to access the information and make an informed decision from a remote location.