Smart or interactive textiles are defined as textiles that can sense and react to environmental conditions or stimuli such as mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, or magnetic properties. Smart and interactive textiles are integrated with conductive polymers, shape memory polymers, electronic sensors, and various communication equipment. High durability, appearance preservation, integrability with the human body, light weight, and reliable protection are some of the important characteristics of smart textiles. The basic application of the smart and interactive textiles is to protect, monitor, and entertainment. It is also termed as a field which is bringing various fields together such as material, industry information technology, textiles, and microsystem.
The global smart and interactive textiles market are segmented based on materials types such as passive smart materials, active smart materials, and ultra smart textiles. In addition, passive smart materials can only sense the environmental condition or stimuli. Active smart materials have the capability to sense as well as to react to the conditions. Similarly, ultra smart textile materials can sense, react, and adjust as per the conditions. On the basis of end-user, the global market is segmented as medical, healthcare, military, aerospace, transportation, and others.
Development in newly crafted textiles has led innovators to invent many smart textile applications such as color-changing fabrics, fabric measuring body fluid composition, pulse and heart monitoring clothes, temperature sensing clothes, microphones in fabrics, cooling apparels, and others. Initiated from a concept, smart textile has now turned out to be a business ideology leading to the constant development of the products. Moreover, technological collaborations among companies have contributed to the growth of the global smart and interactive textile market. Owing to increasing trend of miniaturization and its wide application in electronic industry, the automotive industry is also boosting the smart and interactive market. Application of smart textile in defense apparels to monitor the health conditions of the soldier during warfare, which senses the heartbeat, skin temperature, and breathing rate, is a vital factor responsible for the augmentation of smart textiles market. However, the high price of the finished product may hamper the growth of the global smart and interactive textiles market.
Europe is dominating the global smart and interactive textiles market. North America stands at the second place in the global ranking mainly owing to large consumption of smart textiles in defense and consumer applications. Furthermore, Asia Pacific is expected to grow in the near future.
Some of the major players dominating the global smart and interactive textiles market are E. I. du Pont, de Nemours and Company, Fibertronic Ltd., and Globe Manufacturing Company, LLC. Other key players influencing the global market are Interactive Wear AG, Outlast Technologies Inc., Textronics Inc, and Toray Industries Inc.
Smart and Interactive Textiles Market: Regional Segment Analysis
North America
U.S.
Europe
UK
France
Germany
Asia Pacific
China
Japan
India
Latin America
Brazil
Middle East and Africa
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