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Full title of the project: Ecocentristic sensing – Pioneering biomimetic textile mediators for sound perception beyond human abilities (KONE Foundation)

More about the project:

Textiles are an inherent part of our lives, either as clothes that are in intimate contact with our bodies, or as functional means, like carpets or curtains. However, with the advancements in art and technology, textiles can be transformed to intelligent mediators for human-machine or human-other species interactions. We intend to amalgamate our artistic expression with technical expertise to envision textiles as a medium for connecting us ecocentristically to the environment rather than serving as a barrier. We will create discrete biomaterial-based microphones that will be integrated into textiles. These mediators can give a voice to organisms around us that commonly go unnoticed and can thus enhance our understanding of biodiversity and multi-species behaviour by enabling us to gently listen and observe, with minimal interference, the diverse expressions of living organisms. Our perception of environment is restricted by our sensory limitations. For example, we can perceive sound only within the range of 20-20,000 Hz frequencies. However, many insects, plants and animals communicate below and above this frequency range that we fail to listen to. In the project, we will learn from nature and implement bioinspired designs to construct textiles that respond to sound frequencies beyond human capacities. Furthermore, we will use our strong technical knowhow of triboelectric sensing to design fabrics that will convert the sound-induced vibrational responses into measurable voltage signals. The major objectives include development of triboelectric yarns and non-woven fibres for maximizing triboelectric outputs; new strategies for fabrication of triboelectric textiles; constructing biomimicking textiles that will respond to sound frequency ranges beyond human perception level; and finally, lab simulated and real-life demonstration of environmental monitoring using bioinspired triboelectric fabrics.

Contact information: 

Accountable project leader: Prof. Jaana Vapaavuori (jaana.vapaavuori@aalto.fi)

Project researchers:
Swarnalok De, Postdoctoral Researcher (swarnalok.de@aalto.fi)
Mithila Mohan, Doctoral Candidate (mithila.mohan@aalto.fi)
Marie Vihmar, Visiting Doctoral Researcher (marie.1.vihmar@aalto.fi)

Project page on the Research Aalto portal: TBA