Development of wearable sensors to measure sweat rate and conductivity

Wearable sensors present a new frontier in the development of monitoring techniques. They are of great importance in sectors such as sport and healthcare as they permit the continuous monitoring of physiological and biological elements such as ECG and human sweat. Until recently this could only be carried out in specialized laboratories in the presence of cumbersome and often expensive devices. Sweat monitoring sensors integrated onto textile substrates are not only part of a new field of work but they also represent the first attempt to implement such an innovative idea on a system which will be worn directly on the body. The purpose of this paper is to present the design and creation of low cost, wearable, sweat rate and conductivity sensors integrated onto a textile.