British military uniforms could soon be made from electrically conducting yarn

UNIFORMS WORN BY British soldiers could soon be made with electrically conducting yarn – removing the need for soldiers to carry around heavy batteries and cabling.

The so-called “e-textiles” would provide uniforms with a single power source, woven straight into the fabric, which would cut out the need to recharge multiple batteries for each bit of a soldier’s kit, reports the BBC.

British company Intelligent Textiles has patented several techniques for creating fabrics with built-in conductive yarn and showcased them at an event organised by the Centre for Defence Enterprise.

The e-texiles would be integrated into a solider’s vest, shirt, helmet, backpack, gloves and weapon platform, reports ManufacturingDigital.com. The fabric would even have a built-in “redundancy factor” which would allow power to be re-routed if the material became ripped or damaged.

Field trials using the material could be carried out as early as May, however widespread use of the e-textiles is not thought likely before 2014.