Abstract
The surface electromyography (SEMG) is one of the most popular bio-signals that can be applied in health monitoring systems, fitness training, and rehabilitation devices. Commercial clothing embedded with textile electrodes has already been released onto the market, but there is insufficient information on the performance of textile SEMG electrodes because the required configuration may differ according to the electrode material. The current study analyzed the influence of electrode size and pattern reduction rate (PRR), and hence the clothing pressure (Pc) based on in vivo SEMG signal acquisition. Bipolar SEMG electrodes were made in different electrode diameters Ø 5–30 mm, and the clothing pressure ranged from 6.1 to 12.6 mmHg. The results supported the larger electrodes, and Pc showed better SEMG signal quality by showing lower baseline noise and a gradual increase in the signal to noise ratio (SNR). In particular, electrodes, Ø ≥ 20 mm, and Pc ≥ 10 mmHg showed comparable performance to Ag-Ag/Cl electrodes in current textile-based electrodes. The current study emphasizes and discusses design factors that are particularly required in the designing and manufacturing process of smart clothing with SEMG electrodes, especially as an aspect of clothing design.
Highlights
The surface electromyography (SEMG) is a valuable tool in the fields of biofeedback, prosthesis control, ergonomics, occupational and sports medicine, movement analysis, assessment of the neuromuscular functions, and diagnostic medicine [1,2,3]
The current study aimed to investigate design factors that are required in the designing and manufacturing process of smart clothing with SEMG electrodes
The textile-based electrodes used in this study showed acceptable performances in SEMG signal acquisition, even when compared to Ag/AgCl electrodes, when the electrode diameter and clothing pressure were Ø ≥ 20 mm and
Summary
The surface electromyography (SEMG) is a valuable tool in the fields of biofeedback, prosthesis control, ergonomics, occupational and sports medicine, movement analysis, assessment of the neuromuscular functions, and diagnostic medicine [1,2,3]. The large volume of potent information that can be collected via SEMG measurement explains why many attempts have recently been made to use SEMG as a preferential functional technique that is embedded in a smart wearable system. Representative examples include the Athos wearable system (Athos, USA) and Myontec’s Mbody technical shorts (Myontec Ltd, Kuopio, Finland). Both provide smart clothing in which SEMG electrodes are embedded with a visualized demonstration of real-time muscle activity. The validity of the SEMG values was accepted at a recreational level [8,9,10]
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