(iTers News) -  It is as ultra-thin as 1 mm, tiny enough to fit into shoe insoles. It can embed in sleeves of jackets or shirts to sync with smartphones to answer calls raises up and down volume or select songs. In what’s called the world’s first wearable smart sensor fabric, BeBop Sensors, Inc. unveiled tiny ultra-thin wearable smart fabric sensor that measures all aspects of physicality, including bend, location, motion, rotation, angle, and torque. 


Dubbed as ‘BeBop Wearable Smart Fabric Sensor’, the sensor implements BeBop’s patented proprietary monolithic fabric sensor technology, offering real-time reporting on force, x/y location, bend, twist, size, stretch and motion. Applications range from clothing to protective wear, shoes, healthcare devices to athletic equipment to automotive, robotics, aerospace, gaming machines to biometrics, prosthetics, recycling monitors and appliance markets.


Unlike other wearable sensors on the market today that only measure physiology (EKG, EMG), electrical conductivity or breathing, BeBop measures actual physicality to sense and display 3D maps of data.  With over a million sensors already in daily use on KMI’s musical instrument products, BeBop’s Monolithic Fabric Sensors comes integrated sensors, traces, and electronics into a single piece of fabric to provide greater sensitivity, resolution, range of deployment, and robustness -- all with a tiny size.


BeBop Sensors is a spin-off of KMI Musical Instrument Innovator


The BeBop sensor technology was originally developed to be used with more expressive musical instruments, such as KMI’s popular QuNexus and QuNeo keyboards. As wearable devices become Next Big Things, KMI split the sensor development division off as an independent subsidiary called as BeBop Sensors.


As it is ultra-tiny, the BeBop sensor can be integrated into as a variety of wearable devices shoe insoles, planar, spherical or cylindrical geometry, smart Yoga and gymnasium mats, and grip sensors for baseballs and golf.  It can be also widely used with cars, working its way into car seat sensor to sense airbag fill volume and passenger weight as well as a car steering wheels to sense driver alertness.


“BeBop is a natural step for KMI, where we have diligently tuned fabrics, geometries, and production processes allowing us to ship over 1 million sensors to some of the most demanding musicians in the world,” said Keith McMillen, Founder, KMI and BeBop Sensors.  “All musical instruments are essentially sensors with forms of acoustic processing attached.  The same care and creativity used to build our instruments will serve well for our non-musical customers as we expand into the wearables market.”


BeBop is now offering custom turnkey sensor solutions for OEMs to incorporate into their products, ranging from basic sensors to complete wireless solutions with advanced power management.  Visualization programs for any design with an easily-modified SDK (Software Developer’s Kit) allows manufacturers to create custom apps by choosing from a variety of 2D and 3D representations and colors or by driving the BeBop data into whole new applications. 


“Good designs get the job done, great designs strive for an elegance and simplicity that will make the integration of wearable computing a seamless part of everyday life,” said McMillen.  When McMillen created a foot controller allowing disabled people complete control of a computer,Forbes reported: “In 1984, Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs made the computer mouse mainstream. In 2010, Microsoft introduced the Kinect, allowing computer gamers to control video games by moving their bodies. And on June 21, 2011, Keith McMillen Instruments introduced a gadget that lets you use your computer with your feet.”


 


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