Multisensor Wearable Device for Monitoring Vital Signs and Physical Activity1

Abstract The potential of wearable systems for continuous monitoring of vital signs and physical activity has gained momentum and broad acceptance in recent years. Among several physiological parameters, respiratory rate is gaining interest in the scientific community since it can be useful to perform early detection of patients' deterioration, to retrieve information on cognitive load, emotional stress, discomfort during working activities, and to assess the physical effort and fatigue of the athletes during exercise. In this chapter, a multisensor wearable system for monitoring respiratory rate and physical activity is reported. The wearable system consists of a "smart garment" which embeds custom-made piezoresistive sensors and a magneto-inertial measurement unit. Experiments for assessing the feasibility of the system were performed on a single healthy volunteer during different activities (i.e. static conditions, walking, and running). Results suggest that the proposed design can be used to accurately monitor the two mentioned parameters.