Inertial and Flexible Resistive Sensor Data Fusion for Wearable Breath Recognition

This paper proposes a novel data fusion technique for a wearable multi-sensory patch that integrates an accelerometer and a flexible resistive pressure sensor to accurately capture breathing patterns. It utilizes an accelerometer to detect breathing-related diaphragmatic motion and other body movements, and a flex sensor for muscle stretch detection. The proposed sensor data fusion technique combines inertial and pressure sensors to eliminate nonbreathing body motion-related artifacts, ensuring that the filtered signal exclusively conveys information pertaining to breathing. The fusion technique mitigates the limitations of relying solely on one sensor’s data, providing a more robust and reliable solution for continuous breath monitoring in clinical and home environments. The sensing system was tested against gold-standard spirometry data from multiple participants for various breathing patterns. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach in accurately monitoring breathing rates, even in the presence of nonbreathing-related body motion. The results also demonstrate that the multi-sensor patch presented in this paper can accurately distinguish between varying breathing patterns both at rest and during body movements.