When you hear the word knitting, you may be forgiven for picturing your nan painstakingly putting together a brightly-coloured, itchy jumper. However, one Nottingham textile company is on a mission to change all that with their revolutionary smart textiles, which use sensors knitted within the fabric to monitor health and wellbeing without the need for wires. Addie Kenogbon caught up with Footfalls & Heartbeats founder Simon McMaster to find out how these innovative textiles could hold the key to changing the game for sports performance tracking…
Nottingham is a city that boasts a rich history of textiles, dating back to over 430 years ago when local clergyman William Lee invented the first-ever stocking frame knitting machine.
Today, those techniques are still being used right here in the city by Footfalls & Heartbeats, but for a very different purpose. Specialising in textile sensors, Footfalls uses patented knitting techniques to weave conductive yarns directly into the fabric itself, using the same types of machines William Lee used to make his stockings many years ago. They then can use those yarns and put a current through them to track different metrics and characteristics such as pressure, strain and gait.
“We believe this is the only smart fabric of its kind anywhere in the world,” explains Simon. “It can track your full gait or walking cycle, which usually requires really high-tech electronic sensors. But instead, here, the fabric literally is the sensor.”
Using electronically conductive yarns, the socks and footwear feature specific sections that are the sensors and other sections which allow for power-in and data-out. The innovative knit structure allows the wearer to measure tensile and compressive forces and hopes to provide a revolutionary alternative to solid sensors.
A smartwatch, for example, says it can track your steps when actually what it does is tell you how many times your arm moves. It's pretty accurate but it’s nowhere near as accurate as Footfalls
Using computer-controlled knitting machines, conductive fibres and micro power sources, Footfalls & Heartbeats is able to produce smart textiles that are able to register external stimuli in the form of electronic signals. These signals can then be analysed in real-time to assess and detect compressive force.
In the sports world, many athletes, coaches, sports professionals and teams track performance using digital wearable devices. However, Simon believes Footfalls & Heartbeats’ products could provide much more accurate tracking.
“If you look at rugby for example, many players wear a device behind their neck that tells them how they move,” he says. “Everybody is familiar with the traditional digital wearables you see every day such as your Fitbits and your Apple watches. What they do is they gather data, but then they infer movement from it because they’re not actually on the part of the body that’s moving.”
However, Simon explains that the difference between those devices and what Footfalls & Heartbeats does is that you can put their smart fabric on the part of the body that is actually moving, allowing for real-life tracking.
“A smartwatch, for example, says it can track your steps when actually what it does is tell you how many times your arm moves. Of course, it’s very good at algorithms and making it pretty accurate but it’s nowhere near as accurate as Footfalls,” Simon says.
It feels like it’s come full circle, enabling Nottingham to be at the forefront of technical knitting again in the 21st century, just as it was in the 16th century
And the uses are far-reaching. Featuring true-wearable technology, Footfalls can be placed on someone with a knee injury, for example. It is then able to directly track the knee joint while still feeling like a normal piece of garment or under-layer that can be machine washed and reused. It hopes to mark the next level of data tracking for sportspeople and those looking to get a better handle on their health and wellbeing.
Though not currently commercially available, as Footfalls is a research and development company, the team are currently working with a number of sports companies and health professionals.
“Our products could reduce the number of times people need to see the physiotherapist or occupational therapist,” Simon adds. “They could see them once and show them the exercises and then our products will be able to track how they get on.
“Smart textiles is quite a new industry, but we really want to pioneer that and show people their potential and what they can do as an alternative to wearables. We interact with textiles a lot in our day-to-day lives and we don’t even realise it, so there’s a lot of breadth in the areas we can potentially impact.”
Nottingham is a city entrenched in history and innovation, from William Kee’s stocking-making to the city’s famous lace factories, but with the help of Footfalls & Heartbeats, it could just become the home of sports performance tracking, too.
“I had no idea about Nottingham’s history with knitting when I came here fifteen years ago, but it feels very serendipitous that Footfalls is based here. It feels like it’s come full circle, enabling Nottingham to be at the forefront of technical knitting again in the 21st century, just as it was in the 16th century.”
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