Knitted Resistive Fabric: Properties and Applications.

The presented paper relates to the field of "smart textiles". A new type of knitted strain sensing elements (knitted resistive fabric (KRF)) which can be integrated in the smart garment was developed. KRF was produced from conductive resistive, nonconductive isolating and nonconductive elastomeric yarns. Elastomeric yarn was used as the base yarn and was knitted within the whole fabric, but isolating and resistive yarns (functional yarns) were used as face yarns and knitted in specific sequence. Electrical model of KRF is proposed to describe the behavior of sensing element. The developed KRF has high sensitivity to strain deformation and can be used as local strain sensor or distributed resistive sensing field to control deformation of human body parts, joint motion, respiration etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]