Characterization of the electrode-skin impedance of textile electrodes

• Type: Article in International Conference Proceedings Book
• Date: 2014

Authors

Cristina Oliveira (Author) FEUP; José Machado Da Silva (Author) FEUP

Conference proceedings International

Title: Proceedings of the 2014 29th Conference on Design of Circuits and Integrated Systems, DCIS 2014

Pages: 1-6

2014 29th Conference on Design of Circuits and Integrated Systems, DCIS 2014

26 November 2014 through 28 November 2014

Indexing

Scopus - 24 Citations

INSPEC

Scientific classification

FOS: Engineering and technology > Electrical engineering, Electronic engineering, Information engineering

CORDIS: Technological sciences > Engineering > Biomedical enginnering

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-00G-EPW

DOI: 10.1109/dcis.2014.7035526

Abstract (EN): Wearable systems are expected to contribute for improving traditional biopotential signals monitoring devices due to higher freedom and unobtrusiveness provided to the wearer. Textile electrodes present advantages compared with the conventional Ag/AgCl electrodes for the capturing of biopotentials, namely in terms of skin irritation due to the hydrogel and the need of a technician to place the electrodes on the correct positions. Due to the lack of hydrogel, textile electrodes present different electrical contact characteristics. The skin-electrode impedance is an important feature since it affects the captured signal quality. Although a low impedance is desired, a comfortable wearable system should not require the electrodes to be covered by the hydrogel or be moistened. A forearm sleeve provided with textile electrodes was used to study the electrode-skin impedance and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of surface electromyographic (EMG) signals on a long-term use basis. The sleeve can be adjusted for different levels of tightening to control the pressure applied on the electrodes. The obtained results provide valuable information on the pressure that the textile garments of a sleeve or vest should apply on the recording electrodes, in order to assure a good electrical and mechanical contact between the electrodes and the skin and decrease the noise due to motion. It was observed that the electrode-skin impedance measurement alone is not sufficient to establish a relation with the SNR. The extraction of parameters from an electrical equivalent model of the electrode-skin interface allows to determine a relation with the model parameters and the SNR. The evaluation of these parameters during long-term monitoring will allow assessing the quality of biopotential measurements in textile electrodes. © 2014 IEEE.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific