E-Textile Origami

Headshot of Asimina Kiourti

Primary Investigator

Asimina Kiourti, Ph.D, Assistant Professor

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering - College of Engineering

 

Headshot of Ryan L. Harne

STEAM Collaborator

Ryan L. Harne, Ph.D, Assistant Professor

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering - College of Engineering

 

Summary

This collaborative STEAM Powered Project willestablish the efficacy of a new cross-cutting technology --bridging  wave  physics, art, and  mechanics --that  will  yield  e-textile  functionalities to  enable  unique, transformative advancements in applications as diverse as patient mental health rehabilitation, biophysical monitoring, and engineering structure characterization. The new idea of this project is a foldable e-textile antenna, whose conductive surfaces follow the conformations of an origami tessellation. The large shape change enabled by the proposed tessellated antenna is anticipated to result in orders of magnitude tuning of its resonant frequency. As such, the antenna can be integrated into objects as diverse as clothing, toys, and  bridges  to  sense  mechanical  loads  and  flexure.  The  deformations  are  then  unobtrusively  monitored via remote broadband antenna to leverage the data for applications, such as human computer interfaces or human  performance  tracking.In  addition  to  the  broad  application  impacts  of  these  efforts,  the unique integration  of  origami  engineering  and  wave  physics  also  provides  an  engaging  means  to  introduce science and math fundamentals to young audiences.

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