Grant: College and Community Innovation Program

The main theme of this applied research program is to build capacity at Camosun College to explore new advancements in textiles and clothing for sport applications through a unique combination of materials development, sensor technology application and human performance factors analysis. The unique approach to this field is made possible by the partnership between Camosun and Canadian Sport Centre Pacific (CSCP) and their co-development of the Pacific Institute of for Sport Excellence (PISE), a state of the art 80,000 sq.ft. facility. PISE is designed to facilitate world leading advances in human performance and wellness across the lifespan, bringing together a broad spectrum of sport and wellness expertise, relevant technology and research capability. In the last few years, monitoring systems based on sensors incorporated into garments have played an increasingly innovative role in the development of a wide range of human-oriented monitoring devices. The need to develop wearable monitoring devices and ultimately create comfortable clothing with the built-in ability to measure a range of physiological and physical data without having to resort to bulky apparatus has been the driving force behind the growing international interest in ""smart"" clothing. The use of these ""smart"" fabrics or ""intelligent"" textiles is now being investigated in many application areas including sports performance, recreational activities, rehabilitation, patient monitoring (particularly for remote medical treatment delivery), ergonomics, emergency response personnel monitoring and defense.Support from NSERC to build the capacity of Camosun and PISE in textile advancement and sensor technology development will enable us to create an innovation capability in an important new economic sector for the region and position Vancouver Island as a leader in sport technology development nationally/internationally.