Editor's words

Abstract

Developing materials is basic in wearable technology. The materials had better be stretchable, comfortable, bendable, portable, light and flexible enough to move with the users. That’s why flexible materials are widely used in health diagnosis, sports monitoring, rehabilitation and entertainment.

Sensors are devices that detect some types of input from the physical environment and respond to them.  Sensors in wearable technology are also wearable, and they are widely used in measuring health-related symptoms.

In this issue, we will see some articles about the technique involving in smartwear materials and sensors. Two of our editor board members offered articles of this topic.

Prof. Shufang Li from Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications discussed the different realization methods and performance index requirements of wearable antenna (a new form of wearable devices), introduced the research situation of wearable antenna in China and other countries in recent years, and analyzed the development trend of wearable antenna. Prof. Liping Xie from Northeastern University summarized the development of flexible sensors in recent years, discussed how to construct high-performance flexible stress sensors based on deep analysis and investigation on the working principle and structural design of flexible stress sensors, pointed out the existing problems and looked forward to the development trend of flexible stress sensors. These two articles used to be published in Chinese and it’s our honor to get the two professors’ authorization to have the articles translated and republished. A lot of other interesting researches and reviews were collected in this issue as well.