A sensor fusion wearable health-monitoring system with haptic feedback

A wearable integrated health-monitoring system is presented in this paper. The system is based on a multisensor fusion approach. It consists of a chest-worn device that embeds a controller board, an electrocardiogram (ECG) sensor, a temperature sensor, an accelerometer, a vibration motor, a colour- changing light-emitting diode (LED) and a push-button. This multi-sensor device allows for performing biometric and medical monitoring applications. Distinctive haptic feedback patterns can be actuated by means of the embedded vibration motor according to the user´s health state. The embedded colour-changing LED is employed to provide the wearer with an additional intuitive visual feedback of the current health state. The push-button provided can be pushed by the user to report a potential emergency condition. The collected biometric information can be used to monitor the health state of the person involved in real-time or to get sensitive data to be subsequently analysed for medical diagnosis. In this preliminary work, the system architecture is presented. As a possible application scenario, the health-monitoring of offshore operators is considered. Related initial simulations and experiments are carried out to validate the efficiency of the proposed technology. In particular, the system reduces risk, taking into consideration assessments based on the individual and on overall potentially-harmful situations.