Design And Research On Textile-structured Flexible ECG Electrodes

With the improvement of people's living standard,the accelerating of life pace,and the coming of aging population,various cardiovascular diseases become high incidence for people,and become"the number one killer"to human health.As a result of the limitation of the disposable ECG electrodes,the traditional ECG can only be monitored in hospital and in short time.Due to the use of a layer of water gel of traditional one-time viscous ECG electrodes,with the extension of measuring time,the water gel will be dried up affecting the electrical conductivity,and water gel stick on the skin directly causes skin irritation.The use of textile-structured flexible ECG electrodes is a new trend in wearable ECG electrodes,overcoming the defects of traditional ECG electrodes and providing the possibility of the wearable ECG monitoring.This article mainly optimized and designed the area,shape,cushion,and the way of carrying with garments of textile-structured flexible ECG electrodes.Areas and shapes of textile-structured flexible ECG electrodes were analysed on theory by impedance test,considering comfort,cost,and the need of actual test state,and finially determined the best area and size for textile-structured flexible ECG.Test plan were created and test parameters were determined when the impedance were tested.Seven kinds of electrode cushions were prepared according to the performance requirements,and the most appropriate one was selected according to seven parameters such as liner bending,surface grinding,compressibility,bulging deformation,surface smoothness,air permeability,and moisture permeability.This paper did some preliminary researches about the way of using textile-structured flexible ECG electrode with a T-shirt or a bandage,integrated in different test instruments according ECG signal waveform.Fabric for electrodes was choosed according to impedance,considering fabric style,air permeability and moisture permeability.In order to ensure silver-silver chloride system of different area of the textile-structured electrodes achieving better proportion during chlorination,the relationship of the sample quantity and the voltage or processing time was explored.Through the above researches,the best parameters for the textile-structured electrodes are determined.The results show that the area is larger,the impedance of the textile-structured flexible ECG electrode pair is smaller.For the square electrodes,3 cm to4 cm of the side length can ensure the accurate measurement of ECG signal completely.The shape of the electrodes has little influence on the impedance of the textile-structured flexible ECG electrodes,so square can be chosen according convenient production.In several kinds of cushions,6~#air layer fabric is most suitable as a pad of the textile-structured flexible ECG electrodes.The textile-structured flexible ECG electrodes can accurately test ECG signal in a special T-shirt,using hellofit test device.For ECG waveform tested by the textile-structured flexible ECG electrodes,the amplitude is larger,baseline is more stable,signal is more clear than the disposable ECG electrodes.Honeycomb tissue is the most suitable one for conductive fabric of electrodes in four kinds of conductive fabrics.When chloride processing parameters were optimized,the number of yarn or fabric length can be balanced by voltage or time.After optimizing,impedance of textile-structured flexible ECG electrode is low,so can accurately test ECG signal,and textile-structured flexible ECG electrodes are comfortable,suitable for long time use and reuse.The market prospects of textile-structured flexible ECG electrodes are very broad.