Project Jacquard: Interactive Digital Textiles at Scale

Project Jacquard presents manufacturing technologies that enable deploying invisible ubiquitous interactivity at scale. We propose novel interactive textile materials that can be manufactured inexpensively using existing textile weaving technology and equipment. The development of touch-sensitive textiles begins with the design and engineering of a new highly conductive yarn. The yarns and textiles can be produced by standard textile manufacturing processes and can be dyed to any color, made with a number of materials, and designed to a variety of thicknesses and textures to be consistent with garment designers' needs. We describe the development of yarn, textiles, garments, and user interactivity; we present the opportunities and challenges of creating a manufacturable interactive textile for wearable computing.