Design of a smart ECG garment based on conductive textile electrode and flexible printed circuit board

Article type: Research Article

Authors: Cai, Zhipeng^a | Luo, Kan^{b; *} | Liu, Chengyu^a | Li, Jianqing^{a; c; *}

Affiliations: [a] School of Instrument Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China | [b] School of Information Science and Engineering, Fujian University of Technology, Fuzhou, Fujian, China | [c] School of Basic Medical Sciences, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China

Correspondence: [*] Corresponding authors: Kan Luo, School of Information Science and Engineering, Fujian University of Technology, Fuzhou, Fujian, China. E-mail: [email protected];JianqingLi,SchoolofInstrumentScienceandEngineering,SoutheastUniversity,Nanjing,China.E-mail:[email protected].

Abstract: A smart electrocardiogram (ECG) garment system was designed for continuous, non-invasive and comfortable ECG monitoring, which mainly consists of four components: Conductive textile electrode, garment, flexible printed circuit board (FPCB)-based ECG processing module and android application program. Conductive textile electrode and FPCB-based ECG processing module (6.8 g, 55 mm × 53 mm × 5 mm) are identified as two key techniques to improve the system’s comfort and flexibility. Preliminary experimental results verified that the textile electrodes with circle shape, 40 mm size in diameter, and 5 mm thickness sponge are best suited for the long-term ECG monitoring application. The tests on the whole system confirmed that the designed smart garment can obtain long-term ECG recordings with high signal quality.

Keywords: Smart garment, conductive textile electrode, flexible printed circuit board (FPCB), electrocardiogram (ECG), long-term ECG monitoring

DOI: 10.3233/THC-170828

Journal: Technology and Health Care, vol. 25, no. 4, pp. 815-821, 2017