Conductive Fabric Garment for a Cable-Free Body Area Network

摘要

Users could wear a cable-free body area network using electrically conductive fabrics as naturally as a normal garment. Theoretical analysis and experimentation show that, although a single strand of conductive fabrics has low conductivity, 2D fabric sheets have significantly higher conductivity. This supports the transmission of not only signals but also DC power over the fabric garment. The authors describe the conductive fabric garment's basic design and the body area network using DC power-line communication on the garment. They analyze and experimentally verify the conductivities of a 2D fabric sheet and a 3D fabric garment. They propose design guidelines based on the conductivity analysis and present an initial prototype implementation of the cable-free fabric network. This article is part of a special issue on Healthcare.