Optical Fibers in the Design and Fabrication of Smart Garments – a Review

Abstract

Several publications and even commercial products showcasing the application of optical fibers for textile goods abound in literature. Optical fibers can be employed as sensors by making use of physical principles to sense strain, temperature, and other quantities by tailoring the fiber such that the quantity to be measured alters the intensity, phase, polarisation, and wavelength of light within the fiber. However, a paper directed at the development of textile based applications or smart garments using optical fibers is lacking. This review seeks to serve as apt reference material for the development of optical fiber based textile sensors or smart garments with a focus on the application of plastic optical fibers (POFs). Highlighted are the salient material properties of POFs and their importance in delivering satisfactory sensing results. Special treatment has also been given to their proposed feasibility for embedment within weft knitted structures.

A preliminary study of polymer optical fiber’s knittability for smart wear applications

“…A number of research works and even commercially available products have demonstrated the feasibility of applying polymer optical fibers (POFs) for various types of smart wear products. Plastic/POF is an optical fiber which is made out of plastic or polymer as opposed to conventional glass (Raji et al , 2022). A variety of optical polymers are used in the manufacture of POFs, including polymethyl-methacrylate, amorphous fluorinated polymer – cyclic transparent optical polymer, polystyrene and polycarbonate (Bai and Bai, 2014).…”

“…The choice of knitting technology for the production of these sensors is grounded on the fact that, knitting tend to provide more versatility and flexibility in yarn usage, less wastage, cheaper to set up compared to weaving. The knit structures adopted have also been touted to exert less stress on the POFs during the knitting process (Gong et al , 2019; Raji et al , 2022).…”