Design and Development of Smart Sportswear Integrated with Energy Harvesting Device

Abstract

Fashion and apparel industry has been witnessing a lot of transitions in past few decades with clothing not merely regarded as an entity for protection and self-adornment but the whole concept has been reformed with the inception of smart wearable technologies becoming an integral part of today’s fashion parade. Sportswear is one such highly innovative and functional class of clothing which involves a lot of fiber, yarn and fabric engineering to match the needs of a sportsperson. The basic requirement of sportswear is comfort to the wearer along with easy mobility. Comfort can be engineered into sports textile by the selection of such fiber, yarn and fabric variables that contribute to effective thermal, moisture vapor and liquid moisture transmission through clothing. Furthermore, there has been a quest for enhancing the functionality and performance of sportsperson and monitoring their physiological parameters via specifically engineered and designed sportswear. The present study has been undertaken to integrate the concept of smart wearable technology into sportswear intended for sportsperson indulging in low to dynamic physical activity. Accordingly, a sportswear assembly comprising solicit-sports panel integrated t-shirt, shorts, wristband and baseball cap have been designed and developed to explore the moisture management properties desirous of sportswear and energy harvesting principle of solar panel (via its integration into sportswear). The moisture transmission properties of different knit structures have been analyzed and based on objective evaluation; the most suitable structure has been selected for the design and development of sportswear. The designed sportswear has been incorporated with energy harvesting device and the smart sportswear so developed is subjectively tested and evaluated in real time situations.