Highly conformable stretchable dry electrodes based on inexpensive flex substrate for long-term biopotential (EMG/ECG) monitoring

摘要

The comfortable, long-term, accurate, and continuous biopotential monitoring is of paramount importance for biomedical applications. In this respect, dry electrodes are the way forward for the next generation of wearable health monitoring devices. However, it is still challenging to record the bioelectrical signals, i.e., electroencephalogram (EEG), electromyogram (EMG), electrocardiogram (ECG), of patients during their everyday life. It is mainly because, soft skin-like, at the same time, electrically conducting and biocompatible materials have to be integrated with electrical circuits. Dry electrodes have the potential to be integrated in this manner into a variety of wearable form factors. However, most dry electrodes are fabricated on rigid substrates, which do not possess sufficient flexibility and conformability to human skin. Novel flexible/stretchable substrates are a topic of research in the state-of-the-art literature for dry electrodes in pursuit of the wearable biopotential electrodes.