Smart fabrics firm opens new HQ in Cambridge
The Advanced Functional Fabrics of America unveiled its headquarters and prototyping facility in Cambridge yesterday — and its first two commercial-ready products made with advanced, U.S.-made smart fabrics.
The $10 million, 20,000-square-foot Fabric Discovery Center, largely funded by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the state, will include startup incubation space, and education and workforce development initiatives. It’s part of a national effort to drive high-tech U.S. manufacturing that turns fibers, yarns and fabrics into integrated, networked devices and systems — fabrics that see, hear, sense, communicate, store and convert energy, regulate temperature, monitor health and change color for consumer and military uses.
The nonprofit AFFOA formed last year after an MIT-led team headed by professor Yoel Fink won a U.S. Department of Defense contest to create a $317 million Revolutionary Fibers and Textiles Manufacturing Innovation Institute with $75 million in federal funding over a five-year period, $40 million from the state and about $16 million from MIT. The public-private initiative has more than 100 members, including academic institutions, manufacturers, companies and others.
“The way to changing what fabrics are involves changing what fibers are, and fibers start taking on device qualities,” said Fink, AFFOA’s CEO. “To make a fiber do something special, you need to combine three materials into it … and one of those materials should be a semiconductor.”
AFFOA unveiled a JanSport backpack billed as the first internet-connected, programmable backpack that Fink hopes will be commercially available in September. A mobile “Looks” app lets the wearer program a social network connected to the coded fabric, and share photos and information.
“It allows you to share information beyond what people can see,” Fink said. “It’s disruptive, and it’s made in America, and it’s government-funded.”
“Fabric LiFi” is a fabric lightbased communications system that lets LED lights stream information at high bandwidth to the wearer.
Besides MIT and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, local AFFOA members include the University of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Manufacturing Extension Partnership, U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center, E Ink, Analog Devices, New Balance, Ministry of Supply and Boston Engineering.