Preface of the 4th International Conference on the Challenges, Opportunities, Innovations and Applications in Electronic Textiles (E-Textiles 2022) ^†

Abstract

The 4th International Conference on the Challenges, Opportunities, Innovations and Applications in Electronic Textiles (E-Textiles 2022) was held in Nottingham (United Kingdom) on 8–10 November 2022.

1. Introduction

The United Kingdom’s E-Textiles Network was established in 2018 with the goal of building the electronic textiles community and acting as a bridge between academia and industry. A key objective of the Network was to establish an international conference on the topic where the latest research and developments could be shared and disseminated. The first E-Textiles conference was held in London in 2019, and E-Textiles 2022, the 4th edition of the conference, was held in Nottingham as a hybrid virtual and in-person event. It included a mix of invited and accepted speakers from around the world. Accepted papers were peer-reviewed, and this collection of papers from the conference presents the latest work on a range of electronic textile applications and technologies.

2. Conference Days

The event was held in Nottingham from the 8th to the 10th of November 2022. The technical program was organized into six sessions covering the following topics: sensing and embedded systems, applications and future trends, manufacturing and standards, reliability and sustainability, design and fashion, and immersive technologies.

The first day of the conference focused on E-textiles in action, where participants could bring demonstrations to showcase, and finished with a talk on E-textiles research at Nottingham Trent University.

The next two days consisted of a mixture of in-person and remote presentations, as well as a panel discussion on “Applications and Future Trends for E-Textiles”, and a poster session.

There were two keynote talks, the first being on “The Challenges of Bringing Garment Based E-Textiles to the Mass Consumer Market” by Martin Ashby (Prevayl, UK). The second keynote talk, “Smart Textiles for Personalized Health Care”, was presented by Dr Jun Chen (UCLA, USA).

Fifty-six papers were submitted to the conference, and twenty are published in a volume of MDPI’s Engineering Proceedings [1].

3. E-Textiles 2022 Prizes

E-Textiles 2022 awarded three prizes, which were sponsored by MDPI Micromachines.

3.1. Best Paper Award

Winner: Michelle Farrington (AFFOA, USA) “New Frontiers in Advanced Fibers and Fabrics”.

3.2. Best Student Paper Award

Winner: Xiaona Yang (Donghua University, PRC) “Direct Wet-Spun Single-Walled Carbon Nanotubes-Based p-n Segmented Filaments toward Wearable Thermoelectric Textiles”.

3.3. Best Student Poster Award

Winner: Chengning Yao (Imperial College London, UK) “Thermally conductive h-BN/polymer composites for e-textiles thermal management“.

4. Committees

• Conference chair
• Dr Theodore Hughes Riley, Nottingham Trent University
• Local Organizing Committee
• Prof. Tilak Dias, Nottingham Trent University
• Dr Yang Wei, Nottingham Trent University
• Dr Arash Shahidi, Nottingham Trent University
• Kalana Marasinghe, Nottingham Trent University
• Dr Pasindu Lugoda, Nottingham Trent University
• Jasbir Shanker, Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA)
• Professor Steve Morgan, University of Nottingham
• Technical Programme Committee
• Dr Russel Torah (Chair), University of Southampton
• Dr Jun Chen, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
• Dr Jess Jur, North Carolina State University
• Prof. Anne Schwarz-Pfeiffer, Hochschule Niederrhein
• Sigrid Rotzler, Fraunhofer IZM
• Mark Catchpole, Conductive Transfers
• Dr Yang Wei, Nottingham Trent University
• Dr Yi Li, University of Southampton
• Dr Ishara Dharmasena, Loughborough University
• Dr Rebecca Stewart, Imperial College London
• Dr Debra Carr, Defence and Security Accelerator (DASA)
• Dr Sasikumar Arumugam, University of Southampton
• Jessica Saunders, London College of Fashion
• Dr Abiodun Komolafe, University of Southampton
• Dr Theodore Hughes-Riley, Nottingham Trent University
• Dr Arash Moghaddassian Shahidi, Nottingham Trent University
• Jessica Stanley, Nottingham Trent University
• Dr Sheng Yong, University of Southampton
• Prof. John Wilson, Power Textiles Limited
• Dr Kun Zhang, Donghua University
• Dr Kai Yang, University of Southampton
• Jane McCann, University of Wales, Newport
• International Conference Steering Committee
• Prof. Steve Beeby (Chair), University of Southampton
• Dr Kai Yang, University of Southampton
• Dr Jess Jur, North Carolina State University
• Christian Dalsgaard, Smart Textiles Alliance
• Malte von Krshiwoblozki, Fraunhofer IZM
• Prof. Vladan Koncar, GEMTEX Research Laboratory, ENSAIT
• Prof. George Stylios, Heriot-Watt University
• Dr Laura Salisbury, Royal College of Art
• Dr Kun Zhang, Donghua University
• Prof. Anne Schwarz-Pfeiffer, Hochschule Niederrhein
• Dr Sara Robertson, Royal College of Art
• Prof. Henry Yi Li, University of Manchester
• Dr Jun Chen, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
• Techincal Support
• Beckie Isaia, University of Southampton

5. Sponsorship

E-Textiles 2022 would like to thank the following sponsors for supporting this event:

MDPI Micromachines

Softmatter

Medical Technologies Innovation Facility (MTIF)

It is our great pleasure to announce that the 5th International Conference on the Challenges, Opportunities, Innovations and Applications in Electronic Textiles (E-Textiles 2023) will be held in Ghent, Belgium from the 14th to the 16th of November 2023 (https://e-textilesconference.com/).