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Achievements

• Reference Measurements:
  Reference measurements were done with an optical motion tracking system to get an insight into textile deformations during different body postures. Very clear elongation patterns could be measured. For further information see publication "A Method to Measure Elongations of Clothing".
• Strain Sensor:
  Different elastic and conductive materials were tested for their sensor properties. Most of them turned out to be unsuitable as a strain sensor. We are now using a sensor from EMPA, Switzerland which has very good sensor properties (large measurement range, small hysteresis, very linear, no ageing). It consists of a thermoplastic elastomer (TPE) and is filled with carbon black. Its thread-like form opens the possibility to fully integrate it into the textile. For further information see publication "Recognizing Upper Body Postures using Textile Strain Sensors".
• Prototype:
  Different prototypes were built:
  
  1. The sensors were integrated into a catsuit so that as accurate measurements as possible could be performed.
  2. A jacket was built (see figure) which is not as tight-fitting as the catsuit (less accurate) but has completely textile integrated sensors and connections. The strain in the jacket can be visualized online.
• Classification:
  8 subjects performed 27 upper body postures wearing the catsuit prototype. Using a Bayes classifier and a user-dependant training, a recognition rate of 97% could be achieved (see publication "Recognizing Upper Body Postures using Textile Strain Sensors").

Links

• EMPA

2008

• Body Posture Detection Using Strain Sensitive Clothing
  Corinne Mattmann
  , ETH Zurich, Diss.-No. 17982, 2008
  [ BiBTeX RIS ]
• Sensor for Measuring Strain in Textile
  Corinne Mattmann, Frank Clemens and Gerhard Tröster
  (2008), in: Sensors (MDPI), 8:6(3719-3732)
  [ BiBTeX RIS DOI ]

2007

• Recognizing Upper Body Postures using Textile Strain Sensors
  Corinne Mattmann, Oliver Amft, Holger Harms, Frank Clemens and Gerhard Tröster
  in: Proc. 11th International Symposium on Wearable Computers (ISWC07), Boston, pages 29-36, 2007
  [ BiBTeX RIS PDF DOI ]

2006

• Design Concept of Clothing Recognizing Back Postures
  Corinne Mattmann and Gerhard Tröster
  in: Proc. 3rd IEEE-EMBS International Summer School and Symposium on Medical Devices and Biosensors (ISSS-MDBS 2006), Boston, pages 24-27, 2006
  [ BiBTeX RIS DOI ]

2005

• A Method to Measure Elongations of Clothing
  Corinne Mattmann, Tünde Kirstein and Gerhard Tröster
  in: Proc. 1st International Conference on Intelligent Ambience and Well-Being (Ambience05), Tampere, Finland, 2005
  [ BiBTeX RIS ]