Utilizing Electrical Response from Sensor Displacement to Measure Changes in Force with Textile Integrated Sensors on the Body

Abstract

Smart technologies, such as watches and heart rate monitors, are increasingly worn by people for medical, health, and athletic purposes. These technologies have many advantages over older technologies, by being low-cost, easily portable, and body-conforming. Textile integrated sensors, also called smart wearables or e-textiles, are a growing area of research that can address many medical or therapeutic concerns for people. Conductive thread is commonly used in textile integrated sensors, either in the formation of the thread/fabric itself or as stitching on a textile. This thesis discusses two topics relevant to textile integrated sensors over the course of four papers, two published as conference papers in the proceedings of Design for Medical Devices Conference 2019 and 2020, one journal paper prepared for publication, and another journal paper in preparation for submission.