A preliminary study on the properties of a flexible circuit for wearable electrocardiography (ECG)

This paper describes the investigation conducted on the circuits fabricated on cotton fabric. In this study, cotton fabric was used as the substrate material to replace the conventional electronic boards in order to have a more flexible system. Cotton fabric was chosen since it is inexpensive, flexible and readily available which makes it a suitable platform to integrate the electronic components while still being able to provide comfort for the wearer. A signal processing circuit for electrocardiogram was then implemented on the cotton fabric to create a wearable system using silver/silver chloride (Ag/AgCl) paste as the conductive material for wiring. However, there were several challenges faced during the implementation which include the wicking properties and structure of the cotton fabric, and also integration of the electronic components to the cotton fabric interface.