Textile-based Low-frequency RC Filter for Noise Reduction in ECG signals

Area of Science:

• Electrical Engineering
• Materials Science
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Electronic textiles (e-textiles) have advanced wearable technology, enabling textile-based sensing and actuation.
• While high-frequency filtering is explored in e-textiles, low-frequency filtering remains underexplored.
• Integrating electronic solutions like filtering into textiles offers new possibilities for wearable systems.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and fabricate low-frequency textile-based Resistor-Capacitor (RC) filters for wearable applications.
• To explore various materials and geometric configurations for textile filter components.
• To evaluate the performance and efficacy of these filters in a real-world application, such as electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring.

Main Methods:

• Investigated different materials and geometric designs for textile resistive and capacitive components.
• Fabricated textile-based RC filters and analyzed their frequency response.
• Integrated filters with textile electrodes and tested their performance during static and dynamic activities using ECG signals.

Main Results:

• Textile-based RC filters demonstrated effective low-frequency filtering capabilities.
• Achieved comparable performance to conventional electronic filters in noise suppression.
• Showcased significant signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improvements: 25 dB (static) and 11 dB (dynamic).

Conclusions:

• Textile-based low-frequency filters are viable alternatives to conventional electronic filters.
• These filters show great potential for enhancing the quality of wearable biosignal monitoring.
• The developed filters are suitable for integration into wearable systems, even during physical activity.