BIT: Battery-free, IC-less and Wireless Smart Textile Interface and Sensing System

The development of smart textile interfaces is hindered by the inclusion of rigid hardware components and batteries within the fabric, which pose challenges in terms of manufacturability, usability, and environmental concerns related to electronic waste. To mitigate these issues, we propose a smart textile interface and its wireless sensing system to eliminate the need for ICs, batteries, and connectors embedded into textiles. Our technique is established on the integration of multi-resonant circuits in smart textile interfaces, and utilizing near-field electromagnetic coupling between two coils to facilitate wireless power transfer and data acquisition from smart textile interface. A key aspect of our system is the development of a mathematical model that accurately represents the equivalent circuit of the sensing system. Using this model, we developed a novel algorithm to accurately estimate sensor signals based on changes in system impedance. Through simulation-based experiments and a user study, we demonstrate that our technique effectively supports multiple textile sensors of various types.