Year: 2020
Type: article
Abstract: COBARRUBIAS, ELIZABETH.Design and Test Strategies for Biopotential Sensors in Smart Garments (Under the direction of Dr. Jesse Jur).Heart disease prevails as the leading cause of death worldwide, yet vigilant heart health monitoring solutions remain unavailable.The ongoing improvement of human health and an increase in accessibility to wearable electronics has created new platforms that strive to create solutions through smart garments.The need for these smart garments has motivated the development of wearable biopotential sensor garments.Dry electrode integration in garment systems can potentially fill this gap because the electrodes offer more benefits than traditional wet electrodes that have a limited shelf life and can cause skin irritation.However, to compete with gold-standard wet electrodes, dry electrodes and integration methods face many technical challenges; they must be soft, flexible and breathable for long-term user comfort, they must be powerful enough to obtain a clear and accurate ECG signal (reduce motion artifacts, impedance, and SNR) and they must be durable enough to withstand laundering.Multilayer dry electrode samples were fabricated by screen-printing Ag/AgCl conductive ink onto a polyurethane film, then applied to a fabric backing via heat lamination.This study focuses on improving ECG signal quality via electrode design and strategic garment integration, understanding the skinelectrode interface, and identifying appropriate electrode test methods.Breathability, which is associated with increased comfort by enabling sweat evaporation, is a critical attribute for successful long-term health monitoring.Dry electrodes were designed with varying surface areas and vacancies in the conductive ink and polyurethane layers to test moisture vapor transmission rate and to correlate its effects on electrode-skin impedance.Small holes distributed across the electrode surface showed improved breathability with minimal sensor degradation.One
Author: Elizabeth Cobarrubias
Language: English
Subfield: Biomedical Engineering
Field: Engineering
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3081159017