DocumentCode :
1415889
Title :
Assessment of Sensing Fire Fighters Uniforms for Physiological Parameter Measurement in Harsh Environment
Author :
Curone, Davide ; Secco, Emanuele Lindo ; Caldani, Laura ; Lanata, Antonio ; Paradiso, Rita ; Tognetti, Alessandro ; Magenes, Giovanni
Author_Institution :
Eur. Centre for Training & Res. in Earthquake Eng., Pavia, Italy
Volume :
16
Issue :
3
fYear :
2012
fDate :
5/1/2012 12:00:00 AM
Firstpage :
501
Lastpage :
511
Abstract :
In the last few years, much effort has been devoted to the development of wearable sensing systems able to monitor physiological, behavioral, and environmental parameters. Less has been done on the accurate testing and assessment of this instrumentation, especially when considering devices thought to be used in harsh environments by subjects or operators performing intense physical activities. This paper presents methodology and results of the evaluation of wearable physiological sensors under these conditions. The methodology has been applied to a specific textile-based prototype, aimed at the real-time monitoring of rescuers in emergency contexts, which has been developed within a European funded project called ProeTEX. Wearable sensor measurements have been compared with the ones of suitable gold standards through Bland-Altman statistical analysis; tests were realized in controlled environments simulating typical intervention conditions, with temperatures ranging from 20°C to 45°C and subjects performing mild to very intense activities. This evaluation methodology demonstrated to be effective for the definition of the limits of use of wearable sensors. Furthermore, the ProeTEX prototype demonstrated to be reliable, since it produced negligible errors when used for up to 1 h in normal environmental temperature (20°C and 35°C) and up to 30 min in harsher environment (45°C).
Keywords :
biomedical equipment; biomedical measurement; biosensors; emergency services; patient monitoring; statistical analysis; Bland-Altman statistical analysis; harsh environment; physiological parameter measurement; real-time monitoring; sensing fire fighters uniform assessment; simulating typical intervention conditions; specific textile-based prototype; temperature 20 degC to 45 degC; wearable physiological sensors; wearable sensing systems; wearable sensor measurements; Biomedical monitoring; Clothing; Heart rate; Monitoring; Temperature measurement; Temperature sensors; Harsh environment; physiological sensors; wearable device assessment; Adult; Equipment Design; Firefighters; Heart Rate; Hot Temperature; Humans; Locomotion; Male; Monitoring, Ambulatory; Protective Clothing; Respiratory Rate; Statistics, Nonparametric;
fLanguage :
English
Journal_Title :
Information Technology in Biomedicine, IEEE Transactions on
Publisher :
ieee
ISSN :
1089-7771
Type :
jour
DOI :
10.1109/TITB.2011.2182615
Filename :
6123206
Link To Document :
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