Robust Capacitively-coupled Electrocardiography and Bioimpedance for Unobtrusive Health Monitoring

This research has a focus on the development and evaluation of methods that allow the robust and unobtrusive acquisition of two physiological signals, namely capacitively-coupled electrocardiography (ccECG) for heart activity and capacitively-coupled bioimpedance (ccBIOZ) for respiratory activity. Compared to normal ECG and BIOZ, the unique advantage of ccECG and ccBIOZ is that these can be measured through clothing without requiring direct galvanic contact with the skin. From a technology point of view, through- clothing measurements are much more difficult, but from the user perspective it enables long-term health monitoring in real-life environments, without adding extra burden to people's daily life. Considering the main challenges of the use of these technologies in real-life environments, this work comprises research in the fields of hardware, algorithms, and application validation. It has the purpose of finding methods that enable robust unobtrusive health monitoring via ccECG and ccBIOZ signals in real-life scenarios, as well as evaluating the applications that would benefit the most from these technologies.