E-Textile Breathing Sensor Using Fully Textile Wearable Antennas

Abstract

E-textile sensor networks enable a variety of applications including pervasive monitoring for distributed healthcare. While commercial wearables can now measure various quantities such as heart rate and activities in a real-time, robust, and pervasive manner, breathing sensors remain an ongoing research challenge. In this paper, the use of wearable antennas for respiration monitoring is investigated based on a low-profile broadband fully textile antenna. It is demonstrated that the antenna, suitable for operation on different substrates and body parts, exhibits over 2 dB wireless gain sensitivity to normal breathing. Unlike recent wearable breathing sensors, the proposed antenna has a very simple structure and does not rely on active mechanical sensing elements or specific materials. A simple peak-detection algorithm is investigated showing a nearly 100% breath detection accuracy in line-of-sight. Based on the experimental results, it can be concluded that e-textile antennas can be utilized as highly accurate sensors for respiration monitoring, without the need for specific sensing elements or materials.