Bringing wearable sensor networks to application

Tokyo, Japan / Kaiserslautern, Germany – Xenoma, wearHEALTH, a research group from Technische Universität Kaiserslautern (TUK), and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), have announced a collaboration that combines smart apparel with highly-developed motion capturing technology which brings wearable sensorics close to various applications in sports, health and industry.

The fusion of Xenoma’s e-skin smart apparel with wearHEALTH’s and DFKI’s software technology create one of the most advanced motion capture solutions demonstrated to date. The innovate concept will be presented at the upcoming CES in Las Vegas.

The system includes sensor calibration and magnetometer-free motion capturing algorithms from DFKI and wearHEALTH and combines it with Xenoma’s e-skin smart apparel which can be used in everyday life. This enables a variety of applications in rehabilitation, sport, work safety and wherever detailed and robust motion capturing is required.

For the first step of collaboration, Xenoma developed a smart pants integrating seven 6-axis IMUs. It takes less than a moment to wear and track various kinds of user’s repeating and quick movements continuously.

Furthermore, this solution does not interfere users’ movements and is not affected by magnetic environment like machines and facilities, which is important for use cases in industrial environment.

Dr. Gabriele Bleser, head of wearHEALTH: „Xenoma's hardware represents a perfect integration of sensor technology into clothing, so that intelligent technologies can actually be worn like ordinary everyday clothing”.

Xenoma has been working on projects in sports, fitness, workers’ safety and rehabilitation and plans to integrate the algorithms from the German collaborators into products and services provided by Xenoma or in collaboration with their partners. “The cooperation offers us excellent opportunities to transfer innovative technologies into everyday applications“, says Prof. Dr. Didier Stricker, head of DFKI’s Research Department Augmented Vision.

“Unlike many others, wearHEALTH kept developing their tracking algorithms magnetometer-free in order to be applied in the actual use cases. I am convinced that this collaboration provides a great usability for industry users,” said Ichiro Amimori, Co-Founder & CEO of Xenoma. “Xenoma’s e-skin is developed to be used in a daily life. The technology of wearHEALTH and DFKI allows us to insightfully help athletes, persons under rehab and factory workers.”

The smart pants from this collaboration will be showcased in Xenoma’s booth at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, NV from January 8-11, 2019. Xenoma’s booth is located on the second floor of the Sands Expo #44206.

About DFKI

The German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), founded in 1988 as a public-private-partnership, is the leading German research institute in the field of innovative software technology based on AI methods. In the international scientific community, DFKI ranks among the most recognized “Centers of Excellence” and currently is the biggest research center worldwide in the area of Artificial Intelligence and its application in terms of number of employees and the volume of external funds. The financial budget in 2017 was 45,9 million Euro. DFKI projects cover the whole spectrum from application-oriented basic research to market- and client-oriented design of product functions. DFKI’s sites are located in Kaiserslautern, Saarbrücken, Bremen (with an associated branch in Osnabrück) and a project office in Berlin.

About wearHEALTH (TUK)

The interdisciplinary research group wearHEALTH emerged from scientists of the department Augmented Vision at DFKI and the TUK in 2014 with a funding for 5 years by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Under the direction of Dr. Gabriele Bleser and Dr. Bertram Taetz, wearHEALTH researches and develops effective, mobile and wearable health systems for prevention and rehabilitation. One major focus is on self-configuring, ambulatory motion capturing and analysis providing valid, reliable and objective information.

About Xenoma

Xenoma specializes in system integration using smart apparel. Its stretchable electronics technology Printed Circuit Fabric (PCF) enables their smart apparel brand e-skin to be comfortable clothing for daily life. Founded in November 2015 as a spin-off from the University of Tokyo and collaborating with Japanese apparel manufacturing and trading companies, Xenoma is able to achieve the ultimate human – machine interface through e-skin products. Xenoma works across many industries and sectors to design, develop, and manufacture turn-key smart apparel system solutions.

About e-skin technology brand

Xenoma 'e-skin' is the smart apparel technology brand that freely creates a multi-modal sensor infrastructure which is light, comfortable, durable and machine washable. The e-skin lineup includes the products developed in collaboration with partner companies and of its own. Each product offering has different functionality, formfactor and design depending on the type of application which includes sports and fitness, entertainment, infant and elderly monitoring, safety management of workers and sleep monitoring.

Contact wearHEALTH:

Gabriele Bleser
Head of junior research group wearHEALTH
Technische Universität Kaiserslautern
Gottlieb-Daimler-Str. 48
67663 Kaiserslautern
Phone: +49 631 205 3327
Email: bleser@cs.uni-kl.de

Press contact DFKI:

Christian Heyer
Head of Corporate Communications
DFKI Kaiserslautern
German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI)
Trippstadter Straße 122
67663 Kaiserslautern
Phone: +49 631 20575 1710
Email: christian.heyer@dfki.de

Press contact Xenoma:

Yuka Tomitori
GM of Corporate Planning
Xenoma Inc.
4-6-15 #303, Omoriminami, Ota-ku, Tokyo 143-0013
Phone: +81 3 5735 4622
Email: yuka_tomitori@xenoma.com

https://youtu.be/z6S8XiKcFWk Smart Pants demo video
https://www.dfki.de
https://www.wearhealth.org
https://xenoma.com