Proceedings of the 2005 IEEE

Engineering in Medicine and Biology 27th Annual Conference

Shanghai, China, September 1-4, 2005

MagIC System: a New Textile-Based Wearable Device for Biological

Signal Monitoring. Applicability in Daily Life and Clinical Setting
Marco Di Rienzo, Member IEEE, Francesco Rizzo, Gianfranco Parati, Gabriella Brambilla,
Maurizio Ferratini and Paolo Castiglioni

Abstract— The paper presents a new textile-based wearable
system for the unobtrusive recording of cardiorespiratory and
motion signals during spontaneous behavior along with the first
results concerning the application of this device in daily life and
in a clinical environment. The system, called MagIC (Maglietta
Interattiva Computerizzata), is composed of a vest, including
textile sensors for detecting ECG and respiratory activity, and a
portable electronic board for motion detection, signal
preprocessing and wireless data transmission to a remote
monitoring station.
The MagIC system has been tested in freely moving subjects
at work, at home, while driving and cycling and in microgravity
condition during a parabolic flight. Applicability of the system
in cardiac in-patients is now under evaluation. Preliminary data
derived from recordings performed on patients in bed and
during physical exercise showed 1) good signal quality over
most of the monitoring periods, 2) a correct identification of
arrhythmic events, and 3) a correct estimation of the average
beat-by-beat heart rate.
These positive results supports further developments of the
MagIC system, aimed at tuning this approach for a routine use
in clinical practice and in daily life.
I. INTRODUCTION
M UCH effort is currently devoted to design smart
wearable devices capable to detect vital signs while
the subject is at work, during sport activities, at home or in a
clinical environment without interfering with his/her
spontaneous behavior nor limiting his/her comfort.
Addressing this issue, however, implies to cope with major
problems related to the design of new sensors, handling of
possible noisy data, reduction in size, power consumption
and costs of the new systems. A significant step forward in
this area dates back to 1996 when at the MIT, researchers
foresaw the development of garments capable to provide an
unobtrusive monitoring of biological signals through textile
sensors [1]. Since then, several research groups in the world
[2, 3, 4], including our technological laboratory, have been
working in the attempt to translate this innovative concept
into a real device.
The prototype of our wearable system for the unobtrusive
recording of cardiorespiratory and motion signals during
spontaneous behavior, is now available. In this paper the
main features of the new device, called MagIC (Maglietta
Interattiva Computerizzata) System, are presented along with
the first results concerning its application in daily life and in
a clinical environment.
II. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
The MagIC System is composed of a sensorized vest and a
portable electronic board (see fig.1). The vest is mainly
made of cotton and lycra and is fully washable. At the thorax
level the vest includes two woven electrodes made by
conductive fibers so to obtain an ECG lead. The contact
between textile electrodes and the thorax is guaranteed by
the elastic properties of the garment, without requiring
application of gel or of any other medium. The vest also
includes a textile-based transducer for measurement of
respiratory frequency through the assessment of the changes
in the thorax volume. Via connections made of conductive
fibers, ECG and respiratory signals fed an electronic board
(having the size of a small cell phone) placed on the vest
through a velcro strip. The electronic board detects also the
subject’s movement through a 2-axis accelerometer and
transmits all signals via a wireless connection to a remote
computer which visualize and store data on disk.

M. Di Rienzo (corresponding author), F. Rizzo and P. Castiglioni are

with the Centro di Bioingegneria, Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi ONLUS,
Via Capecelatro 66, 20148 Milano, Italy (Phone: +39-02-40308305; fax:
+39-02-4048919; e-mail: mdirienzo@cbi.dongnocchi.it ,
frizzo@cbi.dongnocchi.it, pcastiglioni@cbi.dongnocchi.it ).
G. Parati is with the Department of Clinical Medicine, Prevention and
Applied Biotechnology, University of Milan-Bicocca - Cardiology II S.
Luca Hospital, Istituto Auxologico Italiano, 20149 Milano, Italy (e-mail:
gianfranco.parati@unimib.it).
M Ferratini and G Brambilla are with the Cardiovascular Rehabilitative
Unit of Santa Maria Nascente Center IRCCS, Fondazione Don Carlo Fig.1- The MagIC System. In the inset a detail of the textile
Gnocchi ONLUS, 20148 Milano (Italy) (e-mail: mferratini@dongnocchi.it electrode
gbrambilla@dongnocchi.it ).

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An example of output obtained by the system is shown in
fig.2.
Fig.2 – Typical output available from the MagIC System
III. APPLICATIONS
So far the system has been tested in freely moving subjects at
work, at home, while driving, during incremental exercise at
the cycloergometer (i.e. while pedalling with a workload that
progressively increases until volitional exhaustion or until a
certain fraction of the subject’s maximal heart rate is
reached), and in microgravity condition during a parabolic
flight.
Fig.3 shows the tachograms simultaneously obtained from
the MagIC System and a traditional ECG recorder
(Cardioline Delta1 Plus, REMCO Italia, S. Pedrino di
Vignate, Italy) in one subject during the incremental exercise
test. The close similarity between the two profiles indicates a
correct estimation of RR interval from the MagIC System
also during exercise.
Fig. 3 – Tachograms simultaneously recorded in one subject
during incremental exercise test. Upper panel: RRI profile
derived from the MagIC System. Lower panel: RRI profile
from traditional ECG recorder.
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The system has been also used in the frame of a more
complex experiment to evaluate the cardiovascular steady
state from the analysis of beat-by-beat RRI during and after
the incremental exercise test [5].
Applicability of the MagIC System in a clinical setting is
now under investigation. Indeed, a specific study is in
progress to validate the use of the system on cardiac in-
patients within the Cardiac Rehabilitation Unit of
Fondazione Don Gnocchi. In the first part of the study we
are focusing on the capability of the system to identify the
features of cardiac rhythm and the occurrence of arrhythmic
events while the subject is in the bed and while is performing
a physical exercise on a cycloergometer as part of his/her
rehabilitation program. Data so far collected from
simultaneous ECG recordings obtained by our system and a
traditional ECG recorder (Cardioline Delta 1 Plus) showed
that MagIC provided readable signals for more than 99% and
95% of the time while the subjects where lying supine and on
the cycloergometer respectively; in all instances the recorded
signal allowed the identification of all the arrhythmic events
and a correct estimation of the average beat-by-beat heart
rate. Fig.4 illustrates two segments of ECG signal
simultaneously recorded by the MagIC System and the
traditional ECG recorder during the above validation study.
Fig. 4 – Comparison of ECG complexes simultaneously
recorded by the MagIC System and the traditional ECG
recorder.
IV. CONCLUSIONS
A new wearable device for the assessment of vital signs
based on textile sensors has been developed and is currently
under test. The first positive results obtained from the
clinical application of the MagIC System on cardiac patients
do encourage the further development and tuning of the
system for a routine use in the clinical setting and in daily
life conditions. From a methodological point of view, our
results also indicate that textile technology may provide an
effective contribution in designing innovative devices for the
assessment of biological signals.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The Authors thank Prof. Giuseppe Andreoni and Dr. Luca
Piccini (Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, Politecnico di
Milano) for their contribution in the early stage of the system
design.

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[5] P Castiglioni, G Merati, M Di Rienzo. Identification of Steady States
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