title: Electroactive fabrics for distributed, comfortable and interactive systems.
abstract: Monitoring body kinematics has fundamental relevance in several biological and technical disciplines. In particular the possibility to know the posture exactly may furnish a main aid in rehabilitation topics. In the present work a collection of innovative and unobtrusive garments able to detect the posture and the movement of the human body are introduced. This paper deals with the design, the development and the realization of sensing garments, from the characterization of innovative comfortable and spreadable sensors to the methodologies employed to gather information on the posture and movement. Several new algorithms devoted to the device operation are presented and tested. Data derived from the sensing garment are analyzed and compared with the data derived from a traditional movement tracking system.
authors.affiliation: Interdepartemental Research Centre E.Piaggio, University of Pisa, Via Diotisalvi 2, Pisa, Italy.
authors.forename: Federico
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Lorussi
authors.forename: Alessandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Tognetti
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tesconi
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Zupone
authors.forename: Raphael
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bartalesi
authors.forename: Danilo
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: De Rossi
mesh_terms: D001696:Biomechanical Phenomena / Q000295:instrumentation*; D020811:Biomedical Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D015374:Biosensing Techniques / Q000295:instrumentation*; D003020:Clothing; D006801:Humans; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000295:instrumentation; D018670:Monitoring, Ambulatory / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013784:Textiles