By Yvonne Medina

Dr. Sundaresan Jayaraman and Dr. Sungmee Park convincingly insist that, “Materials, innovation, technology, and computing should enhance the quality of life of people.” Their research, which lies at the convergence of textiles and computing, has focused on saving the lives of soldiers on the battlefield, infants prone to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome),  hospital patients susceptible to developing pressure injuries, and designing the next generation of respiratory protective devices to prevent inhalation hazards. The field of smart textiles, born in Dr. Jayaraman’s lab here at Georgia Tech,  has revolutionized the way we think about clothing.

When he was growing up in India, Dr. Jayaraman’s parents figured that people would always need clothing, so he would always have a job if he pursued a degree in textile engineering. He feels fortunate to have been able to pursue this sought-after discipline because he was only one of 60 students who graduated that year in India with a degree in textile engineering.

In the U.S., he had the privilege of working with the individuals who created the world’s first spreadsheet – VisiCalc®, the technology developed at Software Arts, that eventually evolved into Lotus 1-2-3 and then into Microsoft Excel. Software Arts funded his fellowship when he pursued his PhD with the Late Professor Milos Konopasek, the creator of QAS and TK!Solver, the world’s first equation-solving program. As part of his doctoral research, Dr. Jayaraman was involved in the development of the program that is being sold in the market. While he does not derive any royalties from the program, that work laid the foundation for his research with his students at Tech at the convergence of textiles and computing.

Dr. Jayaraman’s research has pushed clothing into the digital era, taking it beyond mere protection from the elements and an aesthetic reflection of the wearer’s self-expression and into the realm of smart technology. Dr. Jayaraman and Dr. Park asked themselves, “How do we make clothing more intelligent? How do we bring everyday fabric into the digital era?” They began to integrate conductive materials and sensors into fabrics, and make interconnections to route the information through the fabric thereby creating the world’s first Wearable Motherboard. This innovation in their laboratory here at Georgia Tech gave birth to  the field of smart textiles in 1996. The first Smart Shirt (Wearable Motherboard) that Dr. Park created is now part of the Archives of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History

Dr. Park’s unique background bridges form and function, and art and engineering, to produce products that are both technologically effective and aesthetically pleasing. Dr. Jayaraman states, “Sungmee brings both the left and right-brain thinking to the whole equation.” Dr. Park has a master’s degree in fine arts in addition to engineering degrees. She insists both “form and function are very critical for materials science and engineering.”

According to Dr. Jayaraman, “The field of Smart Textiles was born because we were trying to save the lives of soldiers in battle and relay information to medics and other military personnel in real-time. We were able to create a fabric-based motherboard in which we can put sensors wherever we want and route the information.”

This technology can be used to  identify where a soldier on the battlefield has been shot, monitor his vital signs such as heart rate, electrocardiogram and body temperature, and transmit it to the medic to save lives during the “Golden Hour," a critical window of time in trauma medicine. In the civilian version, the Smart Shirt can be used to monitor the vital signs of individuals, babies prone to SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), and carbon monoxide levels, among other applications. This technology would also “cut the cord” by removing the need to be hooked up with wires to devices in the hospital for monitoring vital signs thereby giving patients much more autonomy over their movements.

Pressure injuries, also known as bedsores, occur when people lie down in bed or sit for a long period of time, especially for those in wheelchairs. It is reported that 60,000 people die every year from pressure injuries and studies have shown that we spend  $26.8 billion annually treating wounds from pressure injuries in hospitals. If a patient has sustained a spinal cord injury, for example, they cannot feel any sensation and are more prone to pressure injuries. Jayaraman and Park’s technology has been integrated into bedsheets to monitor pressure as well as moisture, another factor that leads to pressure injuries, and can alert the nurse if a patient needs to be moved. They have built an “automatic” intervention system into a wheelchair to relieve the moisture and pressure in real-time, and prevent pressure injuries in individuals with limited mobility. They have received the National Academy of Medicine’s Catalyst Award in the Global Healthy Longevity Challenge for further development of the technology.  

More recently, Dr. Jayaraman’s group, with funding from the CDC, created technology that scans a person’s face to create a respiratory protective device (RPD) that is customized to fit the individual’s facial profile. These customizable RPDs also monitor the pressure around the faceseal (the contact surface between the device and the wearer’s face) using a fabric-based sensor network to alert the user when the faceseal is compromised to adjust the device to prevent the leakage of an inhalation hazard into the device, which could compromise the wearer’s health and safety. “This technology is the first step towards ensuring equitable protection for all,” says Dr. Jayaraman since masks and respirators are manufactured in a limited number of sizes making it hard to fit the diverse population in the U.S.

Dr. Jayaraman claims one of the main goals in academia is to innovate, to shift paradigms. His lab initiated the paradigm shift to wearable technology. Academics are thought leaders who pave the way for others to run with their ideas and scale them for the marketplace. If you want to drive innovation, then material science is an ideal field of study.

Dr. Jayaraman and Dr. Park are passionate about encouraging students to study materials science and engineering. Dr. Park claims “materials science is at the center of everyday life.” Materials science is in everything from the food you eat, the makeup you might wear, and the medicines you take. Dr. Jayaraman likens materials science to ice cream flavors: every student gets a solid foundation in math, physics, and chemistry, but then they can choose whatever toppings they want–biomaterials, functional materials, electronic materials, polymers, textiles, metals, and ceramics, for example, on top of that ice cream cone. The opportunities to innovate and find a niche that matches your interests are endless. Dr. Jayaraman insists, “Materials science is fascinating for anybody who wants to make a difference.” Dr. Jayaraman and Dr. Park’s work has revolutionized how we think about materials and textiles by going beyond the paradigm of clothing’s original “form and function” to integrating life-saving technologies into everyday clothing, which they say adds “the third dimension of intelligence to clothing by also making it an information infrastructure.”