Ultrathin Temporary Tattoo Electrodes Enable Prolonged Skin-Conformable EMG Sensing for Hip Exoskeleton Control.

Conventional gel electrodes are the gold standard for surface electromyography (sEMG), yet their bulkiness, stiffness, and limited gel lifetime prevents seamless day-long integration with wearable robots. We integrated ultrathin skin-conformal temporary tattoo electrodes with a powered unilateral hip exoskeleton and compared signal quality during treadmill walking against gel. In this pilot study, five healthy participants completed three consecutive walking blocks at fixed speed: (1) using gel electrodes; (2) using tattoo electrodes to compare signal quality; and (3) using the same tattoo electrodes (not repositioned) after eight hours of wear to simulate a full day of typical device use and to evaluate potential degradation in signal quality over time. Electrodes were positioned on muscles not covered by the exoskeleton interface (tibialis anterior and gastrocnemius medialis), as well as on muscles located beneath the exoskeleton cuff, which were potentially subject to motion artifacts due to the application of external forces by the exoskeleton (rectus femoris and biceps femoris, BF). Across all muscles, for both gel and tattoo electrodes, the root mean square error (RMSE) between normalized sEMG envelopes and biological activation profile was 0.069 ± 0.048, and Pearson's correlation coefficient (