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Turning piezoelectric materials and lithium-ion batteries into thread, innovators weave fabrics that record sound

Turning piezoelectric materials and lithium-ion batteries into thread, innovators will weave fabrics that record sound.

Under a contract from the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity(IARPA), an expert team led by SRI research engineers Marcus Bagnell and Nicole Heidel, specialists in fiber technologies and collaborators at North Carolina State University and International Fabric Machines (IFM), a textile maker, will seek to incorporate a piezoelectric material into a fabric that acts like a microphone — a textile that can record audio. “When sound waves strike the fabric, it stretches the piezoelectric threads, producing an electric signal like the diaphragm of a microphone,” says Bagnell, who is principal investigator. “By shaping the microphone, battery, and other components into thread-like structures, we’re aiming to get functionality woven into the material of the fabric itself, rather than sewn on into buttons or snaps,” Bagnell promises.

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