A wireless gait analysis system by digital textile sensors.

This paper studies the feasibility of spatio-temporal gait analysis based upon digital textile sensors. Digitized legs and feet patterns of healthy subjects and their relations with spatio-temporal gait parameters were analyzed. In the first experiment, spatio-temporal gait parameters were determined during over ground walking. In the second experiment, predicted running, backward walking, walking up stairs and walking down stairs parameters were determined. From the results of the experiments, it is concluded that, for healthy subjects, the duration of subsequent stride cycles and left/right steps, the estimations of step length, cadence, walking speed, central of pressure and central of mass trajectory, can be obtained by analyzing the digital signals from the textile sensors on pants and socks. These parameters are easily displayed in several different graphs allowing the user to view the parameters during gait. Finally, the digital data are easily to analyze the feature of activity recognition.

Sleeping ECG and body position monitoring system.

A textile-based ECG system for sleeper is presented. The electrode in the system is supported by a foam pad to ensure good contact as well as comfort to the wearer, and a flexible rubber to ensure that the electrode will electrically connect to the wearer only when pressed. Eight electrodes are multiplexed such that exactly two electrodes are pressed to connect the wearer no matter how the wearer lies. When the wearer lies in different positions, he/she will press different two electrodes, and then the morphology of the output ECG signal will be different accordingly. By this feature, the system can not only detect ECG but also determine the position of the sleeper.