Intelligent Textiles Based on MEMS Technology

Since the first electrocardiogram (ECG) was recorded on a piece of sensitive paper by Einthoven in 1903, medical doctors had collected much more information of patients and saved many lives. In this paper, a novel prototype of collecting physiological parameters of human body based on silicon flexible skins and the process flow of fabrication by MEMS technology have been proposed. This novel approach enables embedding of the sensors into textiles without compromising the flexibility and wearability of the textiles, and the medical doctor can study the state of an illness continually in door using wireless communication. With the micromachining techniques, a flexible electrode array and a thermoresistive transducer array were designed and fabricated on a silicon wafer. The silicon based sensor array was formed to flexible sensor skin by coating polyimide both two sides after DRIE patterning the backside of the silicon wafer, and then the wearers´ electrocardiogram and temperature based intelligent textiles is presented after conductive yarn was used to stitch the flexible sensor skin into textiles. When the micro sensors and transducers integrated on garment were changed, this technology allows for various functions to be implemented. In addition, finite element method has been used to obtain stress level of the flexible sensor array. The results showed that the value of the resistance of the thermo resistive transducer as a function of the bending times has not demonstrated any essential change and the sensor does not lose function or short circuit after the bending tests.