Centre for flexible electronics and e-textiles (C-FLEET)

About

We're researching soft, conformable materials for use in: 

• personal monitoring and healthcare applications 
• flexible energy-harvesting power supplies and storage  
• industry 
• agriculture 
• civil engineering 
• the marine environment 
• the automotive sector 
   

Our current research areas: 
 

• Flexible printed circuits: printed organic electrochemical transistors for multiplexing and switching applications developed on the WEARPLEX project
   
• Soft smart materials: researchers in electronics and computer science (ECS) have a longstanding track record in developing smart materials that sense and react to certain stimuli such as mechanical forces, electrical signals or magnetic fields
   
• Textile-based energy storage: textile structures provide a scaffold for supercapacitors and batteries to be integrated with the fabric
   
• Printed functional inks for e-textiles: we have developed a range of co-compatible low temperature inks during the Microflex project for use on textiles
   
• Textile-based energy harvesting: we have developed numerous techniques for harvesting ambient energy as an alternative integrated power supply
   
• Integrated electronics in textiles: flexible filament circuits with a patent pending packaging approach for integrated into yarns and textiles (FETT project)
   
• Flexible RF antennas: research covering the design, fabrication and testing of antennas and systems for RF energy harvesting and communication across a range of frequency bands
   
• Green electronics: centre members are involved in a collaborative project with ARM looking at the design, materials and manufacture of printed and flexible electronics in order to aid re-use or ensure biodegradability