Project description
Novelty smart and adjustable medical textiles – A new paradigm
Promising technologies of printable sensors and wearable electrodes are enabling life-saving monitoring of electrophysiological data from the organism and the provision of electrostimulation. They are also raising expectations for even more effective, safer and user-friendly solutions for medical use and healthy lifestyle. Working in this direction, the EU-funded WEARPLEX project will bring revolutionary advances from the integration of printable electronics with flexible and wearable textile-based biomedical electrodes. The multidisciplinary research goal is to enable manufacturing of stretchable textile-based multi-pad electrodes with integrated logic circuits for arbitrary adjustable, flexible configuration of pad positioning. A new paradigm will be created with a custom-made smart electrode allowing compatibility with any system.
Objective
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 focuses on the development of the printable electronics and manufacturing processes for stretchable textile based multi-pad electrodes with integrated logic circuits that enable a significant increase in the number of electrode pads (channels) and facilitate the creation of new products in the sectors of medical electronics and life-style. The advanced printed electronics integrated in WEARPLEX electrodes will allow the individual pads to be connected in arbitrary configurations to the output leads of the electrode. Therefore, the pads will be flexibly organized into several virtual electrodes of arbitrary position, shape and size that can be connected to any standard multi-channel recording and stimulation system. In addition, software methods will be developed for automatic calibration of these virtual electrodes, to detect stimulation/recording hotspots and adjust the virtual electrodes accordingly.
Therefore, the WEARPLEX project 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.
Fields of science
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
RIA - Research and Innovation actionCoordinator
SO17 1BJ Southampton
United Kingdom