Wearable Sensors for Human Activity Monitoring
September 29, 2015
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Abstract
Today, the health system has been developed such that continuous monitoring
of human activities can be even done without hospitalization.This paper reviews
the latest developed technologies based on wearable sensors to tackle with the
challenges today.
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Introduction
Wearable sensors are extremely useful and reliable on ensuring a safe and sound
life. It has great significance in medical field through monitoring patient’s body
temperature,heart rate,brain activity,muscle motion and other critical data. It
also has its usefulness in Sports region for analyzing the players body phenomenon while playing. In near future, this wearable technology will strongly
affect our health and fitness decisions, doctor-patients relation and also the
reducing treatment costs.
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Sensors for Human Activity Monitoring
The fast development of microelectronics, micromechanics, integrated optics
have lead to manufacturing of various kinds of smart sensors to sense and measure data more efficiently and faster, with lower energy consumption and less
processing resources. For controlling the body temperature sensors indicating
any change in body temperature are useful to detect the symptoms of disease
and cure it. To measure the heart rate various methods like Photoplethysmography (PPG) based technology,sound based,based on changes on brightness of
person’s face,etc are useful.For cardiovascular diseses,ElectroCardioGram(ECG)
sensors are commonly used for signaling rate and regularity of heart beats.
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Sensor Networks
For continuous monitoring of physiological parameters, sensor networks are essentially developed.The network should be selected based on cost, performance,
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ease of configuration, addition of extra sensor nodes, range and power consumption etc.A mobile platform consists of a wearable sensor system for collecting
algorithm training data in the lab, and a mobile phone application used to
deliver therapeutic interventions, triggered by sensor data for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).This platform and other networks like Wireless Body Area
Networks(WBAN) are briefly explained in the report.
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Challenges faced
Also it faces several challenges faced on design, development, fabrication, implementation and utilization on continuous monitoring. There are always design challenges from the hardware and software constraints comprising the form
factor, light-weight and low energy operations, as well as there are safety requirements such as avoidance of physical injury. Solutions for dominating these
challenges are also mentioned briefly in the paper.
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Conclusion
The paper has efficiently reviewed the significance of wearable sensors in medical field and its establisation.It is expected that many more improved light
waited,high performance wearable sensors will be soon introduced for monitoring. The survey provided also predict the increasing interest of these sensors in
market along with reduction in cost.
References
[1] M. I. J. M.
a. Miikka Ermes, Juha Parkk
a and I. Korhonen, “Detection of daily activities and sports with wearable
sensors in controlled and uncontrolled conditions.” [Online]. Available:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=arnumber=4358887
[2] S.
C.
Mukhopadhyay,
“Wearable
sensors
for
human
activity
monitoring.”
[Online].
Available:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?tp=arnumber=6974987tag=1
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