Smart sportswear design that can detect vital parameters (original) (raw)

Design of smart garments for sports and rehabilitation

IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering

Physical exercise has proved benefits for general health [1] and can reduce the number of sports injuries to one third [2]. However, an athlete that has been injured during sports practice may omit this out of fear of discrimination, and worsen the injury in the weight room, during strength training [5]. Monitoring physiological status of an athlete or rehabilitation patients during training may thus help the person to get an earlier intervention, preventing injuries from getting worse. With this in mind, we propose a set of compression garments-shirt and leggings-with textile sensors to continually monitor heart and muscle activity, breathing rate and temperature. This paper reports the design of the garments and production of the shirt, which comprised a 3-lead ECG system, sEMG (Surface Electromiography) electrodes and a breathing sensor. The ECG (Electrocardiography) system was tested and presented some good results, in particular for very even movements, but the system still needs to be improved, in order to get a better signal, when it comes to movements with a considerable amplitude.

Design of a Long Sleeve T-Shirt with ECG and EMG for Athletes and Rehabilitation Patients

Lecture Notes in Electrical Engineering, 2018

Considering the importance of strength training in sports injury prevention and rehabilitation, an e-textile system that assists the athlete's training and rehabilitation was designed. This paper reports the construction of a prototype of a T-shirt with embedded textile electrodes to monitor cardiac and muscle activity. Signal tests were conducted and are presented. It is the authors' intention to study and integrate other textile sensors that may provide useful information to the user.

Overview of progress in smart-clothing project for health monitoring and sport applications

2008 1st International Symposium on Applied Sciences in Biomedical and Communication Technologies, ISABEL 2008, 2008

Smart-Clothing is a project that combines research in textiles materials and wireless sensor and actuator networks in the context of human body monitoring with statistical methods for the data analysis and treatment. This project aims mainly to aid in the monitoring of the foetal movement in the last four weeks of pregnancy. Besides the integration of sensors in the garment there will be needed a hierarchical communication system that allows the delivery of the data collected from the garment that the pregnant is wearing to the doctor. The pregnant can be either at home or in the hospital. In the first stage of the project tests are being made using several types of sensors integrated in a belt in order to choose the one that is more reliable for the detection of foetal movement. Another sensing task is the manufacture of the electrodes for the electrocardiogram (ECG) system. At this point, the electrodes for the ECG are already made and working. The testing of the sensor for the detection of foetal movement is still being done.

Design of a Smart Garment for Cycling

Innovation, Engineering and Entrepreneurship

Given the premise that cycling encourages a healthy lifestyle and promotes wellbeing, this paper describes the design process for the development of a cycling garment, with embedded electrodes for heart rate measurement to further widen the possibilities of health and performance monitoring, in a practical and unobtrusive way. Electrodes were produced and tested, using different textile materials and techniques. Signal measurement is based on the BBB Y8YBH20 heart rate monitor and performance tests were done using the Polar Beat mobile app. Finally, a prototype of the garment is presented.

Performance and Signal Quality Analysis of Electrocardiogram Textile Electrodes for Smart Apparel Applications

Frontiers in electronics, 2021

Electronic textile (e-textile) systems applied to biological signal monitoring are of great interest to the healthcare industry, given the potential to provide continuous and long-term monitoring of healthy individuals and patients. Most developments in e-textiles have focused on novel materials and systems without systematic considerations into how the hierarchical structure of fibrous assemblies may influence performance and compatibility of the materials during use. This study examines mechanisms underlying the stability and quality of textile-based electrocardiogram (ECG) electrodes used in a smart bra. Signal quality of the biometric data obtained affects feedback and user experience and may be influenced by characteristics and properties of the material. Under stationary and dynamic conditions, analysis of the raw ECG signal and heart rate, with respect to textile-electrode material properties have been performed. Currently, there is no standardized procedure to compare the ECG signal between electrode materials. In this study, several methods have been applied to compare differences between silverbased textile electrodes and silver/silver-chloride gel electrodes. The comparison methods serve to complement visual observations of the ECG signal acquired, as possible quantitative means to differentiate electrode materials and their performance. From the results obtained, signal quality, and heart rate (HR) detection were found to improve with increased skin contact, and textile structures with lower stretch and surface resistance, especially under dynamic/movement test conditions. It was found that the performance of the textile electrode materials compared exceeded ECG signal quality thresholds previously established for acceptable signal quality, specifically for the kurtosis (K > 5), and Pearson correlation coefficients (r ≥ 0.66) taken from average ECG waveforms calculated.

Continuous health monitoring using E-textile integrated biosensors

2012 International Conference and Exposition on Electrical and Power Engineering, 2012

In this work, continuous health monitoring for disabled or elderly people is proposed using textile integrated electrodes for ECG measurement. Other applications, such as EMG or skin impedance measurement are also envisaged. The paper specifically describes a shirt integrating electrodes for ECG measurement that has been tested in several conditions. The techniques for integration of ECG electrodes can be directly applied for production of EMG or skin-impedance electrodes. Signal processing techniques for heart rate value extraction and to deal with low-quality signal or motion artefacts are being tested and will also be described. Results show that signals acquired with the shirt are comparable to signals acquired with conventional gel electrodes. The complete integration of the electrodes into clothing may have a very interesting psychological benefit, but some issues related to comfort and daily use have to be further investigated.

Performance Evaluation of Textile-Based Electrodes and Motion Sensors for Smart Clothing

IEEE Sensors Journal, 2011

Development of textile-based electrodes and motion sensors is one of the main issues of recent smart textile research utilizing electronic textiles. Electrocardiogram (ECG) electrodes have been developed by various textile technologies such as sputtering or electroless-plating on the fabric surfaces, and embroidering or knitting with stainless steel yarns. In addition, two types of motion sensors have also been developed using piezo-resistive textiles. They were fabricated by knitting and braiding. To examine the usability of the ECG electrode, waveforms of the conventional AgCl electrode, and the new electrodes developed in our lab were compared. It was found that electrodes using metallic embroidering are more efficient when its substrate was a metal blended fabric. The electrolessly Cu/Ni plated fabrics obtained the best conductivity in textile-based electrodes. The first motion-measuring textile-based sensor was used to predict and measure the changes in electric resistances that accompany the angle changes in the elbow joint. An advanced piezo-resistive textile by braiding showed more accurate resistance changes and also better durability. Changes in its electrical resistance were mapped to changes in its length extension. From the relationship between the extension and the electrical resistance, movement or posture of human body was detected.

Health monitoring using textile sensors and electrodes

IEEE International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications (MeMeA 2014), 2014

This paper gives an overview of technologies and results of integration and test of textile integrated sensors and electrodes for monitoring of biosignals (electrocardiographic-ECG and electromyographic-EMG), breathing and moisture. Using a seamless jacquard knitting machine, it is possible to integrate these sensors and electrodes directly into the fabrics, which can then be used in clothing for monitoring of elderly people, in sports or in hazardous occupations. The total integration of the sensing elements and connections into the garment presents great advantages in physical as well as psychological comfort of the user. It has been shown that the measurements are of adequate quality for most of the applications. In some cases, as is the case of ECG and EMG, signals acquired are similar to those obtained using conventional electrodes.