E-wear: A Low-cost, Long-lasting, Multi-sensor Integrated Smart Clothing for Human Motion Tracking

Human motion tracking is essential in fields such as rehabilitation medicine, sports training, human behavior analysis, and film and game production. However, existing methods face significant limitations: inertial measurement units (IMUs) are prone to accuracy issues and magnetic field interference, RGB cameras capture only 2D images and rely heavily on image algorithms, and optical flow sensors, while accurate, are prohibitively expensive and highly sensitive to environmental factors. These challenges underscore the need for a low-cost, high-speed, comfortable, and highly integrated motion measurement system. In this paper, we introduce E-wear, a smart clothing solution that integrates multiple sensors to provide a low-cost, long-lasting, and reliable system for human motion tracking. 8 fabric strain sensor and 1 IMU sensor are used to measure 9 joint motions. The system demonstrates high sensitivity in fabric sensors, robust performance after washing cycles, and provides accurate real-time motion data.