Smart textile enables high-accuracy whole-body EMG recording: Maintains stable signals even during dynamic movements such as jumping and running

A research team led by Dr. Sunghoon Lee (RIKEN / The University of Tokyo), Professor Takao Someya (RIKEN / The University of Tokyo), and Associate Professor Tomoyuki Yokota (The University of Tokyo) has developed a new textile-based wireless system that can accurately acquire muscle activity distributed throughout the entire body, even during dynamic movements such as jumping and running. This breakthrough offers a new way to monitor body movements naturally, without restricting motion or requiring bulky equipment. Because the system enables easy and quantitative evaluation of whole-body movements in daily life, it is expected to find applications in a wide range of fields, including healthcare, rehabilitation, medicine, and sports.

In recent years, smart garments that incorporate electrodes, wiring, and measuring devices into clothing have been developed. These systems can measure electromyography (EMG) wirelessly, allowing muscle activity to be recorded in daily life or during exercise without the physical restrictions of conventional equipment. However, when attempting to obtain signals from muscles distributed across the entire body, the wiring on the garment becomes long, making it susceptible to noise caused by body motion and environmental factors. As a result, it has been difficult to measure weak EMG signals with high accuracy.

To address this issue, the research team developed a stretchable coaxial wiring, in which the conductive yarn, insulating layer, and shielding conductor are all made of stretchable materials, and applied it to clothing. This made it possible, for the first time, to realize a smart garment that shields bioelectrical signals across the entire body and effectively suppresses external noise. As a result, the team succeeded in precisely recording muscle activity not only when a person’s arm was passively moved by another person, but also during dynamic actions such as jumping and running.

Fig. Lower-body smart garment for EMG signal acquisition

Papers

Journal: Science Advances

Title: A body-scale textile-based electromyogram monitoring system with coaxially shielded conductive yarns

Authors: Sunghoon Lee, Kanta Takano, Wakako Yukita, Yusaku Tagawa, Lulu Sun, Shuxu Wang, Joo Sung Kim, Tomoyuki Yokota, Takao Someya

DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adx4518