Printable low-cost sensor systems for healthcare smart textiles

Abstract

Smart textiles-based wearable health monitoring systems (ST-HMS) have been presented as elegant solutions to the requirements of individuals across a wide range of ages. They can be used to monitor young or elderly recuperating /convalescent patients either in hospital or at home, or they can be used by young athletes to monitor important physiological parameters to better design their training or fitness program. Business and academic interests, all over the world, have fueled a great deal of work in the development of this technology since 1990. However, two important impediments to the development of ST-HMS are:-integration of flexible electrodes, flexible sensors, signal conditioning circuits and data logging or wireless transmission devices into a seamless garment and a means to mass manufacture the same, while keeping the costs low. Roll-to-roll printing and screen printing are two low cost methods for large scale manufacturing on flexible substrates and can be extended to textiles as well. These two methods are, currently, best suited for planar structures. The sensors, integrated with wireless telemetry, facilitate development of a ST-HMS that allows for unobtrusive health monitoring. In this paper, we present our results with planar screen printable sensors based on conductive inks which can be used to monitor EKG, abdominal respiration effort, blood pressure, pulse rate and body temperature. The sensor systems were calibrated, and tested for sensitivity, reliability and robustness to ensure reuse after washing cycles.

Printable Displays and Light Sources for Sensor Applications: A Review

“…Vapor-phase microprinting of different phosphorescent OLEDs [95] and different chemically light-emitting polymers [49] can thus be seen as potential sources for arrayed detection techniques, given reports of use of printing methods to development of integrated flexible sensors. [96] Integration of wearable sensors [97] can lead to other applications such as analysis of human sweat, which contains an immense amount of diagnostic information. [98]- [102] Morris et al [103] have reported on the development of a textilebased fluid-handling platform for realtime analysis of sweat, which includes a pH sensor that depends on the use of a pH sensitive dye and a paired emitter-detector LEDs to measure color changes (Fig.…”