Smart Leggings Can Travel Outside the Lab

Feb-27-16 Researchers have used an embroidered circuit pattern to create smart leggings able to measure muscle fatigue during exercise, offering a way to track muscle fatigue outside of the lab for the first time.

Typically, muscle fatigue has been measured either by implanting a wire into the muscle or by placing electrodes on the surface of the skin. While the electrodes are an improvement over the implanted wire, they can be difficult for laymen to place correctly. And both these techniques are expensive and must be used in the lab.

To set the runners free, the smart leggings developed by Roger Ribas Manero and a team at King’s College London are made from a regular pair of leggings that have been embroidered with a zigzag pattern of circuitry that links the electrodes. The zigzag pattern lets the material stretch, and the electrodes automatically make contact in the correct location when the runner puts on the leggings. The entire system is also relatively cheaper and easy to manufacture.

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