A German textile manufacturer highly focused on the development and production of smart textiles is one of the GRAPHERGIA partners: Meet Born Knitting Engineers, introduced by its CEO, Michael Schneider.

At Born, they are pioneers of technical knitting, guiding their customers from the idea to the prototype to series production, with unsurpassed textile innovation.
Born invites you to immerse yourself in their world of smart and technical textiles, where the latest flat knitting machines and circular knitting machines, the most advanced software tools and innovative production techniques are used.

In GRAPHERGIA, they lead one of our three demo cases, part of the Work package WP5 ‘Design, manufacturing and testing of representative technology
demonstrators’:

  • Demonstrator #1. All-in-one self-charging textile capable of energy harvesting and storage. In this demo, we will deploy smart clothing and smart textiles for upholstery fabrics. Our research team will implement single electrode TENGs on the surface of a T-shirt for energy harvesting/storage and on a belt for online gait monitoring, as well as in fabrics to be used in the interior of cabins of transports (aircraft, trains, cars) to improve comfort and safety.

Keep reading to discover more about how they are involved in the GRAPHERGIA project.

Why did you join the GRAPHERGIA project? 

Although smart textiles have been around for quite a while now, there are still some “missing links” that need to be solved. One of them is the autonomous energy supply. GRAPHERGIA is exactly addressing this. And more over with a very innovative approach that can be used in serial production in the future. 

What does your organisation bring to the project? Can you describe your role in GRAPHERGIA?

Mainly, we bring our expertise in the development of smart textiles. And we can verify that the results being developed match the industries needs. We lead the Demo Case #1 All-in-one self-charging textile capable of energy harvesting and storage. In this demonstrator, two case studies are considered: smart clothing and smart textiles for upholstery fabrics. Single electrode TENGs will be implemented based on the innovations arising from other GRAPHERGIA Work Packages.

For the smart clothing, TENG structures will be embedded, for example, on the surface of a T-shirt for energy harvesting/storage and on a belt for on-line gait monitoring. On-line monitoring of such gait patterns using a flexible wearable TENG, for example, integrated into the waist belt, may be proven essential for early diagnosis of gait problems, and hence, provide information for health evaluation, especially for the elderly and patients with orthopedic injuries/surgeries in the rehabilitation stage.

For the smart textiles for upholstery fabrics, a smart-seat prototype will be fabricated, which will be tested as a “self-powered passenger seat indicator”, for example, by displaying a specific seat whenever this is occupied by a passenger. With our Technology Readiness Level (TRL) 9 know-how of embedding conditioning circuits
into textiles, we will provide seamless integration of SuperCapacitors (SCs) into the textiles.

What expectations do you have for the project from your personal/organisational perspective?

We always try to be at the forefront of our branch. GRAPHERGIA will help us to manifest this position.

Which impact will GRAPHERGIA have on industry and society in the short and long term?

With GRAPHERGIA, we can improve the user acceptance of smart and e-textiles in the future, which will drive the markets and increase the amount of use cases. As medical and health is one of the markets where e-textiles can deliver a really meaningful support, patients can benefit a lot from the technological progress like the one that will be achieved in our project.