Smart clothing gets a boost this week with STMicroelectronics launching a prototype suit containing accelerometers and gyroscopes to detect the wearer’s movements, while Fraunhofer shows off sleeves that can detect how fast an assembly worker is performing tasks.
ST reckons the suit can help patients with injuries to monitor their recovery programmes, or help athletes track the effectiveness of their actions e.g. a tennis player’s forehand drive or a golf player’s putting stroke.
It will be possible to compare your own putting action with Rory McIlroy’s or your forehand drive against Roger Federer’s.
The suit is a demonstrator to try and boost ST’s leading position in consumer MEMS manufacturing.
Various units placed around the suit, each one containing a microcontroller and nine sensors, including an accelerometer and a gyroscope, provide data about the user’s movements.
Such a suit today would cost several thousand euro, says ST, but volume production would get that down to affordable levels.
Fraunhofer’s sleeves contain three sensors which measure acceleration and angular velocities of the arms and hands. The institute designed it for an industrial client which wants to monitor workers’ efficiency.
