Cable-Free Wearable Systems Using Conductive Fabrics Transmitting Signals and Power

摘要

Wearable sensing networks have been the focus of the robotics and biotechnology industry for a number of years. While there has been quite a bit of work on sensor technologies, the physical integration of the electronic components with the human body has not received much attention. We have created a body area network that seeks to address this issue by relying on two innovations; the use of conductive fabrics, and the use of DC powerline communication. By combining these innovations, we have created a truly wearable network that allows full generality of sensor location, spatial distribution of the medium to reduce overall bulk, and maintains sufficiently low line impedance for simultaneous power and data delivery over a single conductor. We have created a method for analysis of the transmission properties of conductive fabric garments that takes into account the unique geometry of the human body. We will provide a verification of our analysis method experimental results.