Assessment of sensing fire fighters uniforms for physiological parameter measurement in harsh environment

TY - JOUR

T1 - Assessment of sensing fire fighters uniforms for physiological parameter measurement in harsh environment

AU - Curone, Davide

AU - Secco, Emanuele Lindo

AU - Caldani, Laura

AU - Lanatà, Antonio

AU - Paradiso, Rita

AU - Tognetti, Alessandro

AU - Magenes, Giovanni

PY - 2012/5

Y1 - 2012/5

N2 - 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).

AB - 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).

KW - Hot Temperature

KW - Heart Rate

KW - Equipment Design

KW - Monitoring, Ambulatory

KW - Protective Clothing

KW - Locomotion

KW - Humans

KW - Adult

KW - Firefighters

KW - Statistics, Nonparametric

KW - Respiratory Rate

KW - Male

U2 - 10.1109/TITB.2011.2182615

DO - 10.1109/TITB.2011.2182615

M3 - Article

C2 - 22231710

SN - 1089-7771

VL - 16

SP - 501

EP - 511

JO - IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN BIOMEDICINE

JF - IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN BIOMEDICINE

IS - 3

ER -