Development of dry textile electrodes for electromiography: a comparison between knitted structures and conductive yarns

The paper presents a practical approach concerning the design, implementation and testing of dry textile electrodes for surface electromyography purposes. Several knitted structures were designed and knitted with conductive yarns, in order to compare the influence of the fabric structure in the electrode performance. The effect of the type of conductive yarn was also studied by comparing three different yarns. It was found that the textile electrodes perform well for sEMG acquisition, with a clear depiction of the muscle activity produced. There are significant differences between the structures tested and there is also some influence from the yarn used.This work is supported by Portuguese National Funding, through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, in the framework of project EHRPhysio PTDC/DTP-DES/1661/2012 and project UID/CTM/00264/2013

Treat me well : affective and physiological feedback for wheelchair users

This work reports a electrocardiograph and skin conductivity hardware architecture, based on E-textile electrodes, attached to a wheelchair for affective and physiological computing. Appropriate conditioning circuits and a microcontroller platform that performs acquisition, primary processing, and communication using Bluetooth were designed and implemented. To increase the accuracy and repeatability of the skin conductivity measuring channel, force measurement sensors were attached to the system certifying measuring contact force on the electrode level. Advanced processing including Rwave peak detector, adaptive filtering and autonomic nervous system analysis based on wavelets transform was designed and implemented on a server. A central design of affective recognition and biofeedback system is described.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Health monitoring using textile sensors and electrodes: an overview and integration of technologies

Publicado em "MeMeA 2014 International Symposium on Medical Measurements and Applications : proceedings", ISBN 978-1-4799-2920-7This paper gives an overview of technologies and results of integration and test of textile integrated sensors and electrodes for monitoring of biosignals (electrocardiographic - ECG and electromyographic - EMG), breathing and moisture. Using a seamless jacquard knitting machine, it is possible to integrate these sensors and electrodes directly into the fabrics, which can then be used in clothing for monitoring of elderly people, in sports or in hazardous occupations. The total integration of the sensing elements and connections into the garment presents great advantages in physical as well as psychological comfort of the user. It has been shown that the measurements are of adequate quality for most of the applications. In some cases, as is the case of ECG and EMG, signals acquired are similar to those obtained using conventional electrodes.The authors wish to thank funding by FCT -Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, projects PEst-C/CTM/UI0264/2011, PTDC/DTP-DES/1661/2012 and project PROTACTICAL - Co-Promoção Nº Projecto: 23267, sponsored by AD

Continuous health monitoring using e-textile integrated biosensors

In this work, continuous health monitoring for disabled or elderly people is proposed using textile integrated electrodes for ECG measurement. Other applications, such as EMG or skin impedance measurement are also envisaged. The paper specifically describes a shirt integrating electrodes for ECG measurement that has been tested in several conditions. The techniques for integration of ECG electrodes can be directly applied for production of EMG or skin-impedance electrodes.Signal processing techniques for heart rate value extraction and to deal with low-quality signal or motion artefacts are being tested and will also be described. Results show that signals acquired with the shirt are comparable to signals acquired with conventional gel electrodes. The complete integration of the electrodes into clothing may have a very interesting psychological benefit, but some issues related to comfort and daily use have to be further investigated.Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT

Multiferroic and magnetoelectric properties of Pb0.99[Zr0.45Ti0.47(Ni1/3Sb2/3)0.08]O3–CoFe2O4 multilayer composites fabricated by tape casting

A 2-2 type multiferroic composite device encompassing three CoFe2O4 (CFO) layers confined between four Pb0.99[Zr0.45Ti0.47(Ni1/3Sb2/3)0.08]O3 (PZT) layers was fabricated by tape casting. X-ray diffraction data showed good chemical compatibility between the two phases, whereas Scanning Electron Microscopy imaging also revealed an intimate contact between CFO and PZT layers. Under an applied electric field of 65 kV/cm, this multilayer device shows a saturated polarisation of 7.5 C/cm2 and a strain of 0.12%, whereas under a magnetic field of 10 kOe it exhibits a typical ferromagnetic response and a magnetic moment of 33 emu/g. These devices can be electrically poled, after which they exhibit magnetoelectric coupling

Wearable biopotential measurement using the TI ADS1198 analog front-end and textile electrodes : signal conditioning and signal quality assessment

The development of mobile systems for monitoring bioelectric signals outside a hospital environment involves many challenges that do not arise when it is in a controlled environment, like a hospital. The dimensions of these systems are an important factor to consider in order to facilitate their use without interfering with the daily activities of individuals. The purpose of this work is the implementation of a single-supply battery-powered, low power ECG/EMG signal monitoring system based on the ADS1198 Analog Front-End from Texas Instruments. The system was designed to acquire ECG signals from three electrodes using the integrated Right-Leg-Drive (RLD) circuit from the ADS1198. The developed analog front-end was connected for testing purposes through the SPI interface to a NI-USB 8451 board and signals were acquired using LabVIEW. The circuit was tested in several situations and proved to provide high quality signals using textile integrated electrodes and conventional disposable gel electrodes.FEDER- “Programa Operacional Factores de Competitividade – COMPETE”, FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, projects PEst-C/CTM/UI0264/2011 and PTDC/EEA-ELC/70803/2006, and Instituto de Telecomunicaçõe

Measurements and tests on FBK silicon sensors with an optimized electronic design for a CTA camera

In October 2013, the Italian Ministry approved the funding of a Research & Development (R&D) study, within the "Progetto Premiale TElescopi CHErenkov made in Italy (TECHE)", devoted to the development of a demonstrator for a camera for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) consortium. The demonstrator consists of a sensor plane based on the Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) technology and on an electronics designed for signal sampling. Preliminary tests on a matrix of sensors produced by the Fondazione Bruno Kessler (FBK-Trento, Italy) and on electronic prototypes produced by SITAEL S.p.A. will be presented. In particular, we used different designs of the electronics in order to optimize the output signals in terms of tail cancellation. This is crucial for applications where a high background is expected, as for the CTA experiment.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figures; Proceedings of the 10th Workshop on Science with the New Generation of High-Energy Gamma-ray experiments (SciNeGHE) - PoS(Scineghe2014)00

IoT-based systems for soil nutrients assessment in horticulture

Soil nutrients assessment has great importance in horticulture. Implementation of an information system for horticulture faces many challenges: (i) great spatial variability within farms (e.g., hilly topography); (ii) different soil properties (e.g., different water holding capacity, different content in sand, sit, clay, and soil organic matter, different pH, and different permeability) for different cultivated plants; (iii) different soil nutrient uptake by different cultivated plants; (iv) small size of monoculture; and (v) great variety of farm components, agroecological zone, and socio-economic factors. Advances in information and communication technologies enable creation of low cost, efficient information systems that would improve resources management and increase productivity and sustainability of horticultural farms. We present an information system based on different sensing capability, Internet of Things, and mobile application for horticultural farms. An overview on different techniques and technologies for soil fertility evaluation is also presented. The results obtained in a botanical garden that simulates the diversity of environment and plant diversity of a horticultural farm are discussed considering the challenges identified in the literature and field research. The study provides a theoretical basis and technical support for the development of technologies that enable horticultural farmers to improve resources management.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Emotion Recognition using Wireless Signals

This paper demonstrates a new technology that can infer a person's emotions from RF signals reflected off his body. EQ-Radio transmits an RF signal and analyzes its reflections off a person's body to recognize his emotional state (happy, sad, etc.). The key enabler underlying EQ-Radio is a new algorithm for extracting the individual heartbeats from the wireless signal at an accuracy comparable to on-body ECG monitors. The resulting beats are then used to compute emotion-dependent features which feed a machine-learning emotion classifier. We describe the design and implementation of EQ-Radio, and demonstrate through a user study that its emotion recognition accuracy is on par with state-of-the-art emotion recognition systems that require a person to be hooked to an ECG monitor. Keywords: Wireless Signals; Wireless Sensing; Emotion Recognition; Affective Computing; Heart Rate VariabilityNational Science Foundation (U.S.)United States. Air Forc