Comparison between Resistive and Inductive Textile Sensors for Upper Limbs Edema Measurement

Abstract

Swelling of the upper limbs is a widespread problem after breast cancer surgery. It has already been shown that providing relevant feedback on the swelling phase can make treatment and subsequent rehabilitation more effective. This paper is focused on monitoring the swelling of the upper limbs using textile sensors. Two monitoring methods are compared here: a resistive strain sensor and an inductive strain sensor. This paper is focused on the design and implementation of sensors to the textiles, and there is comparison of sensors based on the results of experiments. This work's main goal is to compare resistive and inductive textile sensors for measuring swelling of the upper limbs in the form of a compression sleeve. The first variant is a sleeve with a sensor for monitoring changes in electrical resistance during stretching. The sensor is made by knitting the electrically conductive yarn SilveR.STAT (110 dtex f 24) into a non-conductive knitted structure. The electrically conductive yarn is in the form of a spiral around the entire circumference. The second variant is a sleeve made of a knitted textile substrate with a flat embroidered electrically conductive yarn (a hybrid conductive yarn containing 8 silver-plated copper microwires).