Engineer designs cutting-edge ‘smart fabric’ for health monitoring

Rıza Özel - ANKARA

A Turkish textile engineer and her colleagues have designed a "smart fabric" that instantaneously tracks various bodily data, from heart rhythm to stress levels, receiving proposals from numerous companies in the United States and Europe to develop the technology in their countries.

Merve Aydıner, along with her seven friends, devoted three years to this special project and described their endeavor as textile-based objects working in the realm of health technologies and data interpretation.

"Our initial project aimed to translate the neuro conditions of non-verbal individuals. Through the smart textile project we named 'MeSenseU,' we were able to translate and convey the neural reactions of a non-verbal autistic child to their family," she explained.

"With 'Fabenode,' our passive smart textile product, we succeeded in the task of collecting data without the user even realizing it. You can view the data through a specialized application. The fabric, in this way, transforms any textile product it is integrated with into an active data-collecting device."

Aydıner also noted that they achieved significant international interest in both the technology and textile sectors.

"We are striving to develop this technology in our country. It is important for this technology to remain a national asset if we are to create added value. It is a highly specialized field, and we are well ahead in it," Aydıner emphasized.

Aydıner and her colleagues have been working at the Kocaeli Informatics Valley since April. Fabenode, introduced in Paris in June, was selected as one of the 16 startups to be exhibited at Viva Tech Paris by the Presidential Investment Office.