Textile Integrated Contactless EMG Sensing for Stress Analysis

Stress has become an important issue in today´s society. Forty to fifty percent of the work related illnesses are directly or indirectly related to stress. In the ConText project, a biofeedback shirt for daily use is being developed to register muscle activity. The user receives feedback about muscle fatigue and/or the level of stress in order to lower the risk on musculoskeletal disorders. Comfort is an important factor to lower the acceptance threshold to wear the shirt. To achieve optimal comfort, the project aims for unobtrusive measurements with contactless sensors which are textile integrated. Working with contactless sensors induces new challenges for instance the displacement of the sensor in the shirt relative to the anatomical position of the muscles. This could affect the recorded signal and lead to errors in the signal. In this paper, we present the results of the quantification of this misalignment. Secondly, we present the first tests with the embroidered sensor.