Noise-Reducing Fabric Electrode for ECG Measurement

In this work, we propose a fabric electrode with a special structure that can play the role of a noise reduction filter. Fabric electrodes made of the conductive fabric have been used for long-term ECG measurements because of their flexibility and non-invasiveness; however, due to the large impedance between the skin and the fabric electrodes, noise is easily introduced into the ECG signal. In contrast to conventional work, in which chip-type passive elements are glued to the electrode to reduce noise, the proposed electrode can obtain a noise-reduced ECG by changing the structure of fabric. Specifically, the proposed electrode was folded multiple times to form a capacitor with a capacitance of about 3 nF. It is combined with the skin-electrode impedance to form a low-pass filter. In the experiment, we made a prototype of the electrodes and measured ECG at rest and during EMG-induced exercise. As a result, the SNR values at rest and during exercise were improved about 12.02 and [Formula: see text] dB, respectively, compared with the fabric electrode without special structure. In conclusion, we have shown that changing the fabric electrode structure effectively removes noise in ECG measurement.