3D-knit Dry Electrodes Using Conductive Elastomeric Fibers for Long-term Continuous Electrophysiological Monitoring

Abstract

With the rapid development of wearable devices for continuous health monitoring, researchers have focused on developing high performance electrodes for biopotential recording. It is challenging to have flexible, breathable and durable biopotential electrodes that can record high quality biosignals. This paper aims to tackle this challenge by designing and fabricating novel dry textile electrodes using conductive elastomeric filament (CEF) fibers. Using an industrial scale knitting machine, CEF fibers are knitted into dry textile electrodes. Electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings performed with CEF-based textile electrodes are comparable in signal fidelity to that of the gold standard gel electrodes. In order to assess the performance of the dry textile electrodes in more realistic circumstances, underwear garments with embedded dry textile electrodes are knitted. High fidelity ECG signals of a wearer are recorded in seated, standing and supine positions. The effect of consumer wash and dry cycles is evaluated before and after 30 cycles, through the changes in the recorded ECG signals. The frequency distribution of the ECG signals remains similar to the pre-wash state (r-squared = 0.93). The findings of this study provide fundamental insights into the behavior of CEF fibers in smart textiles for long-term electrophysiological monitoring.