Testing of Electronically Conductive Textiles for Placement in a Medical Garment

摘要

The development of wearable electronic clothing is a budding field that holds much promise yet is complex and relatively underdeveloped. One of the primary barriers to electronic apparel development is the integration of appropriate communication paths into garments. Accomplishing this task requires knowledge from a combination of fields that commonly do not interact, such as textiles and apparel, electrical and computer engineering, and health sciences. This study emphasized multidisciplinary collaboration from these fields in three phases. Phase Ⅰ: Procurement of commercially available conductive fabrics and fibers; Phase Ⅱ: Determining conductive paths defined by circuit board / electrode placement and body parameters and wear-ability restrictions. Phase Ⅲ: Building and evaluating conductive textile configurations to meet the electric/electromagnetic requirements. Through close collaboration, the team developed a model for evaluating conductive textiles for optimum placement in a medical embodiment that will be useful to design and product development teams when attempting to enter into this emerging domain. In addition to providing an overview of currently available conductive textiles, this research also provides a methodology for testing procedures that determine successful paths for transmitting appropriate electronic signals through a wearable garment.