WEALTHY – a wearable healthcare system: new frontier on e-textile

Abstract

A comfortable health monitoring system named WEALTHY is presented. The system is based on a wearable interface implemented by integrating fabric sensors, advanced signal processing techniques and modern telecommunication systems, on a textile platform. Conducting and piezoresistive materials in form of fibre and yarn are integrated in a garment and used as sensors, connectors and electrode elements. Simultaneous recording of vital signs allows extrapolation of more complex parameters and inter-signal elaboration that contribute to produce alert messages and patient table. The purpose of this publication is to evaluate the performance of the textile platform and the possibility of the simultaneous acquisition of several biomedical signals.

Keywords

• fabric sensors
• fabric electrodes
• physiological signs