Knitted Wearable Stretch Sensor for Breathing Monitoring Application

Abstract

Wearable technologies have been rapidly growing during the last decade.One of the most developed applications is the physiological and medical evaluation by using textile based sensors and electrodes.Sensors integrated into such a system are expected to be able to support the monitoring of personal activity during daily life and ensure the early detection of abnormal conditions such as sleep apnea which is a sleeping disorder phenomenon .Complete garment knitting is a one-step process, which enables to integrate the textile based sensor into a garment directly in the knitting process.The objective with this project was to design a weft knitted stretch sensor of different conductive yarns and structures.The performance of the sensors was evaluated by measuring the electrical resistance changes in the knitted structure as a function of elongation with a self-built cyclic tester.In addition, a prototype garment made by flat knitting machine has been made in order to evaluate the sensor performance as a breathing rate indicator.