Design and Integration of a Multifunctional System for Sensing, Haptic Feedback, and Wireless Charging in Magnetoactive Textiles

Abstract

Textiles naturally conform to complex curved surfaces, including fingers, wrists, and knees, and deform with body motion, making them well-suited for wearable interaction systems. As wearable interfaces move beyond single-function applications toward closed-loop interaction and long-term use, textile systems increasingly require the integration of multiple functional capabilities, including sensing, haptics, and energy reception. However, existing systems typically add separate components or modules to increase functionality. These additions introduce extra structures, wiring, and connectors, increasing bulk, weight, and local rigidity, and ultimately compromising the inherent wearability of textiles. This thesis presents the circuit design and system integration of a magnetoactive textile interface that addresses these challenges through a unified structure. Instead of implementing sensing, haptic feedback, and wireless charging as separate physical modules, the proposed system reuses the same textile structure across multiple operating modes. Each unit is composed of machine-knitted electromagnets and a soft magnetoactive fiber, which physically remains a flexible, garment-integrable form factor. Through system integration, dedicated functional circuits support biomechanical sensing, vibrotactile haptics, and wireless charging, while relay-based multi-channel switching allows each textile unit to independently route among these functions. This approach reduces the need for stacking different functional components, enabling a unified textile interface with expanded functionality while preserving wearability. To validate the capabilities of the magnetoactive textiles, the units were fabricated together with conventional yarns through a machine knitting process and integrated into multiple garment forms, including sleeves, gloves, knee braces, and chokers. These prototypes demonstrate that textile units integrated into different wearable form factors can be applied to diverse scenarios, including IoT control, sports monitoring, and accessibility. In conclusion, this thesis demonstrates the design and integration of a multifunctional platform for magnetoactive textiles based on a single unified structure. Dedicated circuits enable sensing, haptic feedback, and wireless charging, while relay arrays allow multiple textile units to be independently switched among different functional modes. This approach expands textile functionality while maintaining a compact, garment-integrated form factor.