Development and Validation of Novel Support Sensor Using Printed Electronics

Abstract

In this study, sensing support wear which was consisted of stretchable and printable sensors on textiles was developed to monitor body movement in natural and more comfortable situations. This sensor showed stably gradual electrical resistance variations with stretching up to 100% strain, which showed higher stretchability than conventional printable sensors. To test the validation of the new device, a joint angle during elbow extension and flexion was compared to a camera-based measurement system. As a result, the correlation coefficient between the waveforms of both devices was r = 0.88±0.04. In addition, extension and flexion cycle could be counted by peak count algorism with the probability of 80.6±34.0%. On the other hand, the root mean squared errors (RMSE) were shown 21.2±5.7 and 45.4±17.4 degrees for slow and fast motion, respectively. In particular, although the RMSE increased around maximum flexion, well performed at the target range of daily physical activities. In conclusion, the results indicated the sensing support wear would be able to apply for predicting and/or classification of physical movement.