With the rapid development of the Internet of Things (IoT) and smart devices, wearable technology is gradually integrating into people's daily lives. In particular, wireless body area networks (WBANs) can monitor human physiological signals in real time with the help of wireless sensors, providing strong support for health management, disease prevention and rehabilitation.
However, most wearable devices on the market today rely on traditional silicon-based processors and modular electronic components, which are powerful but also have significant drawbacks. Silicon-based processors and electronics are stiff and difficult to blend well with soft clothing, which can affect comfort when worn for long periods of time. Moreover, they usually require an external power supply, and frequent charging not only increases the cost of use, but also limits the battery life of the device, causing a lot of inconvenience to users.
To overcome these challenges, a team of researchers from Donghua University in Shanghai and ETH Zurich has made a major breakthrough by proposing a fabric-based wireless sensing network composed of only a single fiber. "We have delved into the mechanism by which fibers achieve the three functions of energy generation, signal sensing and wireless transmission, and have designed a self-powered, chipless wireless smart clothing system based on Fibre-WBAN," said co-corresponding author Wang Hongzhi.”
Figure: Innovative breakthroughs in self-powered wireless sensing fibers
This innovative system can be used in a wide variety of ways. It can be used as an extension accessory for existing smartwatches, and with a wireless fabric keyboard, it can easily control games like "Snake", bringing users a new entertainment experience. At the same time, Fibre-WBAN can be embroidered directly on clothing, combined with human movement posture, to build a wireless sensing human body network, to achieve accurate gesture recognition. This function has great potential in the field of intelligent interaction, for example, in virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) scenarios, users can naturally interact with the virtual environment through simple gestures, which greatly improves the convenience and smoothness of interaction and injects new vitality into the development of related industries.
In addition, the technology has shown unique advantages in health monitoring. By responding to the concentration of sodium and chloride ions in simulated sweat, Fibre-WBAN enables quantitative signal sensing and sweat monitoring. This means that in the process of health management, disease prevention and rehabilitation, it can monitor the health status of the human body in real time and accurately, provide valuable data for users and medical personnel, assist in health assessment and disease diagnosis, and effectively promote the intelligent development of the medical industry.
As Wang added, "Our research results demonstrate the potential of using clothing to modulate electromagnetic propagation around the human body, laying the foundation for applying the concept of wearable electronics to textile platforms for wireless sensing, signal processing, and energy transmission." With its broad application prospects in wearable devices, health monitoring, intelligent interaction and other fields, self-powered wireless sensing fiber technology is expected to revolutionize existing technologies, create more possibilities for future smart life, and lead the industry to a new stage of development.
