Researchers from Arkansas successfully tailored such an outfit with sensors that will be able to monitor a patient’s respiration rate and body temperature in real time and thus provide point-of-care diagnostics to health-care professionals and greater freedom for patients. They integrated organic semiconductor and electrical-engineering into smart fabrics garments with wireless technology. With this technology, the smart fabric can monitor vital signs and collect and send data to an information hub in real time. The information can provide immediate detection of physiological abnormalities, which will allow physicians to begin treatment or prevent illness before problems reach an acute stage.

The researchers – Ji and Soyoun Jung, a graduate student in electrical engineering, under the direction of Vijay Varadan, Distinguished Professor of electrical engineering – worked with pentacene, a hydrocarbon molecule, and carbon nanotubes to develop the two types of sensors.
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