Vertically Weft‐Knitted Smart Kinesiotapes for High‐Sensitivity, Low‐Drift Textile Strain Sensing in Close‐to‐Body Motion Monitoring

Abstract

ABSTRACT Textile‐integrated strain sensors enable close‐to‐body motion monitoring, but performance depends strongly on textile architecture. Embroidered and weft‐knitted Smart Kinesiotapes incorporating the same silver‐plated polyamide yarn are compared using five specimens per configuration under cyclic elongation in increments up to . The effects of sensor geometry, sensing‐path length and knitting orientation on base resistance, drift and relative resistance change are evaluated. Vertical orientation reduces one‐line base resistance from to , corresponding to , and four‐line base resistance from to , corresponding to . Compared with the corresponding vertical structures, the relative resistance changes of the horizontal one‐ and four‐line variants are and lower, respectively. The vertical variants provide distinct cyclic signals and close temporal agreement with the applied strain. For the embroidered sensors, the straight geometry provides the largest response, whereas extending the sensing path to four lines increases base resistance without amplifying the relative response. The one‐line vertically knitted sensor provides the most promising combination of low base resistance, high sensitivity and signal interpretability. These findings provide design guidance for body‐conforming textile strain sensors.