Philips, researchers light up clothes with LEDs

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Philips and several European research institutes have formed an initiative to design LED lighting into a wide variety of consumer products including clothes. The so-called PLACE-it program has won nearly $15 million in funding from the European Commission under its Seventh Framework Program.

The project will explore ways to add LEDs to everyday objects ranging from a baby's blanket to a chair or pair of pants. Philips is working with a range of academic and commercial organizations including the Holst Center, IMEC and the University of Heidelberg.

Philips is exploring ways to integrate LEDs into a baby's blanket.

The initiative has several goals for its projected three-and-a-half year timeframe. They include developing on foil, elastic and fabric substrates optoelectronic technologies, devices for light emission, electronics and sensing. The group also aims to draft industry design guidelines for light-emitting flexible surfaces and textiles and build demonstrations of new LED lighting technologies.

Michael Jackson's designer Zaldy created a special costume using Philips Lumalive light emitting textiles

"Until now, large area electronics R&D has been carried out independently for flexible, elastic and fabric based technologies," says Liesbeth van Pieterson, senior scientist at Philips Research and project leader of PLACE-it. "In the PLACE-it project, foil, elastic and fabric substrate technologies will be systematically co-developed with the common goal of heterogeneous integration," she said in a press statement.