Title :
Nanofiber Web Textile Dry Electrodes for Long-Term Biopotential Recording
Author :
Tong InOh ; Sun Yoon ; Tae Eui Kim ; Hun Wi ; Kap Jin Kim ; Eung Je Woo ; Sadleir, Rosalind J.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Biomed. Eng., Kyung Hee Univ., Yongin, South Korea
Abstract :
Electrode properties are key to the quality of measured biopotential signals. Ubiquitous health care systems require long-term monitoring of biopotential signals from normal volunteers and patients in home or hospital environments. In these settings it is appropriate to use dry textile electrode networks for monitoring purposes, rather than the gel or saline-sponge skin interfaces used with Ag/AgCl electrodes. In this study, we report performance test results of two different electrospun conductive nanofiber webs, and three metal plated fabrics. We evaluated contact impedance, step response, noise and signal fidelity performance indices for all five dry electrodes, and compared them to those of conventional Ag/AgCl electrodes. Overall, we found nanofiber web electrodes matched Ag/AgCl electrode performance more closely than metal plated fabric electrodes, with the contact resistance and capacitance of Ag plated PVDF nanofiber web electrodes being most similar to Ag/AgCl over the 10 Hz to 500 kHz frequency range. We also observed that step responses of all three metal-plated fabrics were poorer than those for nanofiber web electrodes and Ag/AgCl. Further, noise standard deviation and noise power spectral densities were generally lower in nanofiber web electrodes than metal plated fabrics; and waveform fidelity of ECG-like traces recorded from nanofiber web electrodes was higher than for metal plated fabrics. We recommend textile nanofiber web electrodes in applications where flexibility, comfort and durability are required in addition to good electrical characteristics.
Keywords :
bioelectric potentials; biomedical electrodes; conducting polymers; contact resistance; electrospinning; nanofabrication; nanofibres; patient monitoring; polymer fibres; textiles; Ag plated PVDF nanofiber web electrodes; ECG like traces; contact impedance; conventional Ag-AgCl electrode comparison; dry textile electrode networks; electrode properties; electrospun conductive nanofiber webs; long term biopotential recording; long term biopotential signal monitoring; measured biopotential signal quality; metal plated fabrics; monitoring purposes; nanofiber web textile dry electrodes; noise performance indices; signal fidelity performance indices; step response; ubiquitous health care systems; Biomedical measurements; Electrodes; Fabrics; Frequency measurement; Impedance; Impedance measurement; Noise; Biomedical electrodes; contact impedance; nanostructures; textile electrodes; Artifacts; Electric Capacitance; Electric Conductivity; Electric Impedance; Electrodes; Equipment Design; Humans; Materials Testing; Metals; Monitoring, Physiologic; Nanofibers; Reproducibility of Results; Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; Telemetry; Textiles;
Journal_Title :
Biomedical Circuits and Systems, IEEE Transactions on
DOI :
10.1109/TBCAS.2012.2201154