E-Textiles for sports: a systematic review

Abstract

This work presents a systematic review to provide an overview of the possibilities for coupling, fabrication or embedding of electronics into textiles whilst assuring the capability of these products to meet the requirements of a sports modality. The development of smart wearables systems for sports based on textiles attracts more and more users – motivated by design, by technology, as well as by the expectation of increased performance. A bibliographic search was carried out using the following databases: Scopus, Web of Science, IEEE Xplore and Science Direct. This study includes 32 articles and discusses these in a new taxonomy with three dimensions: measured variable, types of feedback and applications. Of the 23 technologies surveyed, this review showed that these wearable systems are mainly used for vital signs monitoring and to provide feedback on the electrical activity of the heart, with sensors mostly placed in the chest. Usually, the technologies are externally attachable rather than embedded in the textile. We observed that the implementation of design as the process of development of e-textile products is still only scarcely present in these studies.