WEARPLEX is a multidisciplinary research and innovation action with the overall aim to integrate printed electronics with flexible and wearable textile-based biomedical multi-pad electrodes. It aims to answer the growing need for user friendly electrodes for pervasive measurement of electrophysiological signals and application of electrical stimulation. It focused on the development of the printable electronics and manufacturing processes for textile based multi-pad electrodes with integrated logic circuits that enable a significant increase in the number of electrode pads (channels) with the same number of control wires and facilitate the creation of new products in the sectors of medical electronics and life-style.
The advanced printed electronics integrated in WEARPLEX electrodes allows the individual pads to be connected in arbitrary configurations to the output leads of the electrode. Therefore, the pads can be flexibly organized into virtual electrodes of arbitrary position, shape and size that can be connected to standard multi-channel recording and stimulation systems. In addition, software methods have been developed for automatic calibration of these electrodes, to detect stimulation/recording hotspots and adjust the electrode pad selection accordingly. Therefore, the WEARPLEX project results will lead to a new generation of smart electrodes that will be able to adapt simultaneously to the user (wearable and stretchable garment), recording/stimulation scenario (movement type and target muscles) and recording/stimulation system (number of channels). This is a paradigm shift in designing the recording and stimulation systems, as the switching electronics is shifted from the custom-made stimulator/recording device to the smart electrode, leading to a universal solution compatible with any system.
19 peer reviewed papers have been published during the project, with 10 conference talks, 3 workshops, 1 webinar and 1 magazine article. 5 main demonstrators have been produced and videos of these in operation can be found on the project website links to YouTube.
