Knitted Electronic Textiles

Research and development in smart wearable systems for personalized services, especially for monitoring purposes, has significantly increased worldwide. Electronic textiles (e-textiles) are relevant promoters of technological progress for sectors like biomonitoring, rehabilitation, telemedicine, teleassistance, and sport medicine. The integration of biosensors into clothes enables daily physiological monitoring through a continuous and personalized detection of vital signs, while garments with strain- and stress-sensing capabilities enable tracking of posture and gestures of the subject. The e-textile systems comprise fabric electrodes and sensors capable of capturing bioelectrical and biomechanical signals like electrocardiogram, electromyogram, respiration, bioimpedance, skin conductivity, and sweat characteristics. This chapter begins with a detailed description of the technology for the design and the implementation of sensing textiles, starting from the fiber and ending with the final textile configuration in the garment. Several types of textile sensors for biomonitoring are described, and several examples of smart fabric and textile platforms developed for healthcare applications are reported.

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