Smart sleeve stitching captures arm movement

Known as SeamSleeve, the technology creates electrical circuits by passing low voltage currents through conductive threads in the garment seams.

Resistance in the circuits changes as the body moves, creating a picture of activity that the researchers say is much more accurate than that captured by smartwatches or smartphones.

Developed by researchers at Bath and Bristol universities, SeamSleeve will be presented at the Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference in Copenhagen today (3 July).

"We're excited by the opportunity for clothing manufacturers to implement our designs in sleeves and other garment seams,” said Professor Mike Fraser of Bristol University's School of Computer Science

“We've shown that common overlocked seams in standard garment constructions can do a good job of sensing movement. The design avoids the need for a separate power source by pairing the seam with a charging coil, drawing the energy wirelessly from a mobile phone placed in the pocket. This means advanced motion sensing garments could be made without altering existing manufacturing processes.”

According to the researchers, SeamSleeve could enable e-textile designers and clothing manufacturers to create garments that could enhance exercise, physiotherapy and rehabilitation. They developed four different sleeve designs with varying seam and sensing channel configurations. User tests were then carried out on the different designs to find the optimal seam for accurately capturing movement.

A second set of tests was then conducted to map various arm movements to 12 different therapeutic exercises using AI. The SeamSleeve team believes this could help inform rehabilitation programmes outside of the clinical setting, providing smartphone feedback to users performing physiotherapy exercises at home.

"We have also shown that smartphone apps using advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques can use this movement data to match body movement to specific postures or gestures such as physiotherapeutic exercises,” said Prof Fraser.