Inductive Textile Sensor Design and Validation for a Wearable Monitoring Device

Textile sensors have gained attention for wearable devices, in which the most popular are the resistive textile sensor. However, these sensors present high hysteresis and a drift when stretched for long periods of time. Inductive textile sensors have been commonly used as antennas and plethysmographs, and their applications have been extended to measure heartbeat, wireless data transmission, and motion and gesture capturing systems. Inductive textile sensors have shown high reliability, stable readings, low production cost, and an easy manufacturing process. This paper presents the design and validation of an inductive strain textile sensor. The anthropometric dimensions of a healthy participant were used to define the maximum dimensions of the inductive textile sensor. The design of the inductive sensor was studied through theoretical calculations and simulations. Parameters such as height, width, area, perimeter, and number of complete loops were considered to calculate and evaluate the inductance value.