Flexible Pressure Sensors for Integration into Karate Body Protector

The increasing interest in karate has also attracted the attention of researchers, especially in combining the equipment used by practitioners with technology to prevent injuries, improve technical skills and provide appropriate scoring. Contrary to the sport of taekwondo, the development of a smart body protector in the sport of karate is still a niche field to be researched. This study focused on developing piezoresistive, textile-based pressure sensors using piezoresistive film, conductive fabric as well as different bonding materials and methods. Primarily, small-scale sensors were produced using ultrasonic welding, hot press welding and oven curing. These were characterized using a universal testing machine and specific conditioning and data-acquisition hardware combined with custom processing software. Large-scale sensors were then manufactured to be placed inside the karate body protector and characterized using cyclic testing. The conditioning circuit allows flexible gain adjustment, and it was possible to obtain a stable signal with an output of up to 0.03 V/N, an adequate signal for the tested force range. The transfer function shows some drift over the cycles, in addition to the expected hysteresis and slight nonlinearity, which can be compensated for. Finally, the configuration with the best results was tested in real practice tests; during these tests the body protector was placed on a dummy as well as on a person. The results showed that the piezoresistive textile-based pressure sensor produced is able to detect and quantify the impact of even light punches, providing an unobtrusive means for performance monitoring and score calculation for competitive practice of this sport.