Design and fabrication of touch-sensitive polymeric optical fibre (POF) fabric

Abstract

Polymeric optical fibres (POFs) can be integrated into a textile structure for illuminative fashion andinterior fabric applications. In this study, the development of a touch-sensitive POF fabric systemthrough the integration of conductive yarns and an electronic controlling system was explored.Distinct from conventional sensor applications, the capacitive sensor used in this study was embeddedinto the textile structure using conductive yarns via experimentations with different weave structures.With the embedded controlling system and RGB light-emitting diodes, the POF fabrics were able totransfer sensory signals into illumination. This study combined novel weaving techniques, differentmaterials and electronic system development to develop a multi-touch interface based on textile cap-acitive sensors that can sense both touch contact and non-contact/proximity. The final prototype canbe washed up to 10 laundry cycles. The results demonstrated that multiple functionalities can be inte-grated into the structure to produce an interactive textile based product.