Functionalising textile flooring for application-specific information and guidance systems

The project aims to define fundamentals for developing functionalised flooring. Application includes both sensory and actuator properties as well as their control. The main objective is the development of built-in dynamic piezoresistive sensors, which are embedded in flooring systems to detect objects and people as well as their movements. To convey relevant information, light elements are placed in the floor covering (textile covering, carpeting, plastic covering), which will activate situation-dependent and provide visual information. For impact sound insulation, a large-area installed bus system serves as power supply and for data transport.

A modular system approach is intended to allow flexible configuration of the functional elements and adaptation to different applications. Variations are possible in functionality (without additional functionality, sensory, actuator or combined), sensitivity and selectivity (density and arrangement of sensory or actuator elements) and the type of networking (wireless, wired). In addition to issues of hardware interfaces (connections for supply voltage and data lines), aspects of security and data sovereignty are also considered. Furthermore, a technology for manufacturing the individual systems will be developed.