MyHeart Project
From Capsil Wiki
MyHeart [1] aims at fighting Cardio Vascular Disease [2] by preventive lifestyle and early diagnosis. For the continuous measurement of vital signs electronic systems and sensors were developed and embedded into functional cloths. In continuous monitoring Electro Cardiogram (ECG)[3] applications alternatives to gel-based (wet) silver/silver-chloride electrodes were sought. Gel-based sensor pads exhibit much better performance than rubber based or textile based pads with a much higher signal to noise ratio [4]. However the gel-based contacts are not as practical as dry contacts particularly when a lot of motion and sweating may be involved. Textile body contacts are very troublesome due to them being adversely affected by motion and general body posture. They suffer a decline in signal quality depending on the particular motion and how 'snug' the contact is with the body. To improve this situation, tighter fitting garments are necessary - leading to discomfort and also making dress and undress more of an issue. The MyHeart project was concerned with looking at this problem and suggesting approaches that could give all the comfort and practicality of textile based sensors but with the strong signal robustness of gel-based systems.
The MyHeart project measures ECG, respiration and acceleration via on-body sesnors and electronics. The on-body processing of these signals is applied to derive relevant features before storing or transmitting the data from the body. Moreover, analog-digital conversion of the sensor signals must be done as close as possible to the sensor to optimise signal quality, ensure higher reliability and optimise transmission lines and bandwidth usage. The on-body processing acquires, filters and process sensor data as well as store and forward processing results wirelessly (via Bluetooth) to the user station.
MyHeart uses the electronic system placed into a side pocket of the garment. It must be removed before washing of the textile. This approach has the advantage that the electronics does not need a waterproof seal, however it requires a connector to the garment-based sensors that is manageable by an untrained user so to some extent it can be said that this solution has a ways to go to be more practical and useable
The MyHeart project concluded that much more work is needed to make textile wearable type body sensor networks more robust and reliable as the artifacts of motion and interference are major science challenges still to be overcome.
References
- ↑ http://www.hitech-projects.com/euprojects/myheart/
- ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_disease
- ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrocardiogram
- ↑ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio
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