Smart fabric could store passcodes in your clothes invisibly
Washington Nov 1 (IANS) Scientists including one of Indian-origin have created fabrics and fashion accessories that can store data -- from security codes to identification tags -- without needing any on-board electronics or sensors.
The data can be read using an instrument embedded in existing smartphones to enable navigation apps according to a paper presented at the Association for Computing Machinery s User Interface Software and Technology Symposium (UIST 2017) in Quebec Canada.
"This is a completely electronic-free design which means you can iron the smart fabric or put it in the washer and dryer " said senior author Shyam Gollakota Associate Professor at the University of Washington.
"You can think of the fabric as a hard disk -- you re actually doing this data storage on the clothes you re wearing " Gollakota said.
To create the smart fabric the researchers leveraged magnetic properties of off-the-shelf conductive thread.
Most people today combine conductive thread -- embroidery thread that can carry an electrical current -- with other types of electronics to create outfits stuffed animals or accessories that light up or communicate.
But the researchers realised that this off-the-shelf conductive thread also has magnetic properties that can be manipulated to store either digital data or visual information like letters or numbers.
This data can be read by a magnetometer an inexpensive instrument that measures the direction and strength of magnetic fields and is embedded in most smartphones.
"We are using something that already exists on a smartphone and uses almost no power so the cost of reading this type of data is negligible " Gollakota said.
In one example they stored the passcode to an electronic door lock on a patch of conductive fabric sewn to a shirt cuff.
They unlocked the door by waving the cuff in front of an array of magnetometers.
The researchers said they also created fashion accessories like a tie belt necklace and wristband and decoded the data by swiping a smartphone across them.
--IANS
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