Wireless-based Monitoring of Body Movements Using Wearable Sensors
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0920-S04-05
Wireless-based Monitoring of Body Movements Using Wearable Sensors Sarah Brady1, Shirley Coyle1, Yanzhe Wu2, Gordon Wallace2, and Dermot Diamond1 1 National Centre for Sensor Research, Adaptive Information Cluster, School of Chemical Sciences, Dublin City University, Glasnevin, Dublin, 9, Ireland 2 Intelligent Polymer Research Institute and ARC Centre of Excellence for Electromaterials Science, University of Wollongong, Northfields Avenue, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia
ABSTRACT The world is becoming more health conscious and as a result healthcare is evolving in many ways. Wearable computing is assisting with this evolution, finding its place in many biomedical applications where real-time monitoring of general health indicators is required. However, the inconvenience of connecting sensors through wires, which not only incurs high maintenance, limits the freedom of the person therefore hampering a true reflection of the person’s actions. By using sensors attached to wireless sensor nodes, this constraint is removed. Also in order to be “wearable” the sensors must be comfortable, a factor often overlooked by traditional sensors, where functionality and robustness are of higher importance. This work is focused on the use of foam-based pressure sensors and similar textile-based sensors for monitoring the ambulatory movements of the wearer. Characterization of the molecular nature of the materials and their environment are presented. We find these sensors to be successful in detecting the movement events without imposing on the daily activity of the wearer. INTRODUCTION Advances in wearable computing potentially allow people to become much more aware of their own health and wellbeing, a vital innovation for preventative healthcare. This allows for physiological testing to be taken out of the lab and into the realistic lifestyle of the wearer. The applications of wearable technologies are numerous and varied encompassing clinical measurements such as monitoring elderly or isolated populations remotely [1, 2], to sports assessments for athletes whether they be recreational or elite. A good overview of current research is given in a publication edited by Yang [3] which describes new sensing devices for healthcare used to develop body sensor networks. In order for the technology to be accessible it must remain innocuous and impose minimal intrusion on the daily activities of the wearer. Therefore wearable technologies must be soft, flexible, washable, maintaining the tactile properties of normal clothing, and data transmission must be wireless allowing free movement of the wearer. Traditionally electronic components are hard and brittle which lends to an inharmonious integration into the soft textile substrate. A more seamless integration is possible by intrinsically making the textile the sensor. This may be done by opting for conducting polymer sensors rather than inflexible, brittle silicon components. Conducting electroactive polymers such as polypyrrole and polyaniline are inherently able to conduct ch
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