Saeed Zahedi, Blatchford, UK

TECHNOLOGY-SPECIFIC WORKSHOP 1
TEXTILE SENSORS AND ACTUATORS

21 JUNE 2004 Dana Centre (Science Museum)
Wellcome Wolfson Building
165 Queen's Gate, London, SW7 5HE

The aim of this workshop is to formulate research and development proposals in textile sensors & actuators for various applications that can be put forward to the DTI’s new Technology Programme or the EPSRC for funding. The intention is to bring together a multi-disciplinary group of people spanning design, fashion, textiles, through to electronics, computing & material science, & facilitate across these communities. The development programmes will focus on two generic groups of textiles, namely clothing & interiors. The workshop will examine the applications for sensors and actuators, providing an overview of what needs to be sensed & actuated. A broad scan of conductive polymers (a prime candidate for delivering sensing and actuation at a textile scale) & fabrication processes will also be presented, which will be followed by a brainstorm.

9:30-10:00AM Coffee/tea & Registration

10:00-10:05AM Presentations | d.Studio
The Body
Healthcare/medical
Clothing/leisure/sport Kim Blair, Centre for Sports Innovation, MIT, USA
The Environment
Built Duncan Wilson, Arup, UK
Automotive Sonja Herman, consultant to BMW, Germany

11:15-11:45AM Break

11:45-12:45AM Presentations from materials sectors:
Textile sensors and actuators currently available Paul Gough, Philips Research, UK
Polymer sensors Pankaj Vadgama, Queen Mary University of London, UK
Polymer actuators
Electrically activated Electroactive actuators Geoffrey Mitchell, University of Reading, UK
Thermally activated Shape memory alloys & polymers George Stylios, Heriot Watt University, UK

12:45-1:30PM Presentations from fabrication sector
Direct writing Brian Derby, UMIST, UK
Nano fabrication Michael Pitkethly, QinetiQ, UK
Fibre science Robert Mather, Heriot Watt University, UK

1:30-2:15PM Lunch

2:15-4:00PM Facilitated brainstorm session
Define future research activity | d.Studio & d.Study
Introduced by Michael Metelits, Nothing Special consultancy
Participants can choose to work in one of four multi-disciplinary groups. Each group will be asked to produce two multi-disciplinary research proposal frameworks, by mapping application ideas with technological capabilities, & design & development process for materials and applications. Participants can choose to work in the group that interests them.

4:00-4:30PM Break

4:30-5:30PM Group presentations | d.Studio
A lead person from each group will present the ideas, which can be developed further outside of the workshop, with a view to putting them forward to the DTI’s new Technology Programme or to the EPSRC for funding.

Copyright of each presentation and the material contained therein belongs to the respective author. Neither the presentation nor any of its content can be copied, duplicated, or used in any way, unless permission is sought from the author in question. If you would like to contact any of the authors, please do so via the network