Development of Wireless Heating E-Textile Belt for Thermotherapy Application with Four Quadrant Control

Thermotherapy is the application of heat as a relief for pain and discomfort. This study presents a heating e-textile belt to provide the needed temperatures for thermotherapy using conductive thread as heating element. The belt was controlled wirelessly using an Android mobile application connected to the microcontroller through Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). The belt was set to provide temperatures of 33 °C to 44 °C for 5 to 30 minutes from four heating quadrants using proportional-integral-derivative (PID) as a control system. Bekinox 50/1 (BK 50/1) conductive thread heating element was tested for the accuracy of its produced temperature during a recommended thermotherapy session with a target temperature of 44° C for 30 minutes. Using two-tailed paired-sample t-test, the result indicates that the heating e-textile belt produced temperatures that are reliably the same as the set temperature with T-score of 2.2130 and reference value of 2.262. Tests conducted have a 95% interval of confidence.