1,720,968 research outputs found
Studio e sviluppo di sistemi innovativi per eHealth e mHealth tramite l’impiego di WBSN e mobile computing
No full textL'evoluzione nel campo dell'elettronica, dell'informatica e delle telecomunicazioni, sempre più imponente negli ultimi anni, ha prodotto nuove tecnologie la cui diffusione sta diventando progressivamente più capillare.
Queste innovazioni stanno apportando notevoli cambiamenti in molti settori della società e rivoluzionando le abitudini di tutti noi.
Questa tesi di dottorato è rivolta al mondo del Remote Patient Monitoring mediante la ricerca e lo sviluppo di tecnologie altamente innovative che possano apportare innegabili vantaggi in tale settore. Lo scopo principale è, quindi, di proporre soluzioni all'avanguardia per un monitoraggio remoto completo e continuativo di pazienti nelle loro abitazioni o in mobilità.
In particolare, le soluzioni che verranno descritte sono caratterizzate da una profonda multidisciplinarità, riguardando la cooperazione tra i settori dei sensori indossabili, delle Wireless Sensor Network, dell'elaborazione di segnali biomedicali, e della gestione tramite applicazioni web dei dati e delle telecomunicazioni in ambito medico.
I vari capitoli dell'elaborato presentano una serie di sistemi che sfruttano le tecnologie abilitanti appena citate e che riguardano il monitoraggio dell'attività cardiaca, dell'attività respiratoria e della temperatura corporea localizzata, nonché l'analisi del movimento per applicazioni di fall detection.
In aggiunta viene presentato un sistema di tele-consulenza medica peer-to-peer, basato esclusivamente su un applicativo web che permette anche la condivisione in tempo reale di segnali e parametri vitali acquisiti tramite sensori indossabili.
Infine, viene presentato un possibile anello di congiunzione tra i vari sistemi di monitoraggio qui proposti, ovvero una Wireless Sensor Network integrante uno stack TCP/IP completo e compatibile con le reti IP tradizionali. Questa soluzione mira a garantire l'interoperabilità tra i sensori indossabili (o reti di sensori indossabili) e altre tipologie di sistemi, come ad esempio sensori ambientali per l'Ambient Assisted Living, reti di sensori per il monitoraggio di parametri ambientali, o impianti di Home Automation, il tutto sfruttando un unico protocollo per le comunicazioni, ovvero lo standard IP, ed aprendo le porte allo scenario dell'Internet of Things
A real-time system to aid clinical classification and quantification of tremor in Parkinson's disease
No full textThe availability of an objective clinical evaluation in the diagnosis and monitoring of parkinson's disease is a primary importance objective in neurology. Furthermore, in many patients next to resting tremor typical of the disease are also found other types of tremor as kinetic and postural tremor so making the diagnosis difficult. The ability to classify the different types of tremor specific for each patient through an examination of the instrumental, non-invasive and very simple and fast is a great tool to aid the clinical diagnosis of the disease. Our system meets the above requirements. It consists of an inertial sensor that allows the acquisition of the quantities of interest, and by a series of algorithms able to provide an objective and quantitative assessment of the type and severity of tremor in patients with Parkinson's disease. The availability of an objective report on the severity of the disorder developed according to a strict correlation with the valuation provided by the UPDRS scale is a good starting point towards the personalization of care as well as being a useful tool in the analysis of the course of the disease
Real-time Monitoring of Cardiac and Respiratory Activities Using a Consumer Wearable Device
No full textA Wearable Fall Detector for Elderly People Based on AHRS and Barometric Sensor
No full textFalls and their consequences are among the major
health care problems affecting functional mobility and quality
of life of elderly people. Even for people living independently,
falls are common occurrences. In this paper, we present a
waist-mounted device useful to detect possible falls in elderly
people. Through data coming from a 3-axis accelerometer, a 3-
axis gyroscope, a 3-axis magnetometer and a barometer sensor
integrated into our device, we are able to obtain a highly accurate
estimation about posture and altitude of the subject. By means of
such information we have developed an extremely efficient system
for fall detection reaching 100% of sensitivity in commonly
adopted testing protocols. Particularly, the algorithm was tested
according with three different experimental protocols where
volunteers performed several scenarios including various types
of falls, falls with recovery and daily living activities frequent in
the elderly. Results show that the proper combined use of the
four sensors and efficient data fusion algorithms allow to achieve
noticeable better performances to those obtained with similar
systems proposed in the literature
A High Reliability Wearable Device for Elderly Fall Detection
No full textFalls are critical events among elderly people that requires timely rescue. In this paper, we propose a fall detection system consisting of an inertial unit that includes triaxial accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer with efficient data fusion and fall detection algorithms. Starting from the raw data, the implemented orientation filter provides the correct orientation of the subject in terms of yaw, pitch, and roll angles. The system is tested according to experimental protocols, engaging volunteers who performed simulated falls, simulated falls with recovery, and activities of daily living. By placing our wearable sensor on the waist of the subject, the unit is able to achieve fall detection performance above those of similar systems proposed in literature. The results obtained through commonly adopted protocols show excellent accuracy, sensitivity and specificity, improving the results of other techniques proposed in the literature
A Versatile WSN Approach for Smart Environments in AAL Application
No full textWe propose the general architecture of a scaled
physical world that is richly and invisibly interwoven with a
variety of heterogeneous sensors, actuators, seamlessly embedded
in everyday live objects, and connected through a unique IPv6
wireless network. The use of the Internet Protocol (IP) stack
in Wireless Sensor Networks architecture is a key prerequisite
for the Internet of Things (IoT) paradigm. The ability to
connect thousands of smart objects, scattered across physical
environment, directly to the Internet opens exciting scenarios for
a variety of application areas, such as e-health, smart metering,
smart home, logistics, home automation, AAL, etc. Furthermore,
it allows to achieve the desired interoperability requirement
between the previous systems that to date make use of heterogeneous
protocols and G2G communications. The strength of the
developed system is its versatility and scalability relatively to the
number and density of deployed nodes, network typology and
types of actuators and sensing units that can be easily integrated
in each node. The variety of measurements for the constant care
and safety of person living in the environment monitored by
the WSN can be easily extended by adding to the network new
types of nodes. The paper describes the proposed system’s major
building blocks, its functionalities, the implementation approach
and the realized application for indoor localization
Performance evaluation of a Pedestrian Navigation System based on an objective experimental method
No full textThe ability to estimate the distance covered and the orientation of a person, regardless from where he or she is located, is an important aspect in various research areas and in particular in Pedestrian Navigation Systems (PNS) for emergency responders. In this paper we present a PNS based on a wearable wireless device attached to the instep of the pedestrian. The implemented real time algorithm, is able to identify pedestrian's strides, estimating theirs length and direction by using information provided from an embedded Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). The proposed device is also equipped with MicroSD slot and Bluetooth module for data storage and for sending information in real time. The proposed system has been tested through an objective experimental method in which ten volunteers were walking along three different tracks, five times each, keeping the IMU attached to the instep. In the first trial subjects walked along a straight path that is 90m long, in the second they walked twice along a rectangular path with long side equal to 15m and short side equal to 7.5m and in the last they walked 400m along a standard athletics track. For each test we computed absolute and average error. The results show that the average error is 3.52% for the straight track, 1.09% for the rectangular track and 3.71% for the elliptic track
Highly Accurate Wearable Attitude and Heading Reference System for kinematics assessment and AAL applications
No full textIn this paper we propose a wireless wearable device
useful for a series of real-time monitoring functions depending
on the desired application and the placement of the unit on
the body of the subject. It contains a 3-axis accelerometer,
a 3-axis gyroscope and a 3-axis magnetometer, realizing an
Attitude Heading Reference System (AHRS), plus a barometric
unit. The AHRS provides the correct 3D orientation referred
to the terrestrial axis through an implemented data fusion
algorithm. On the sensor board can also be real time execute
the automatic fall detection algorithm, handling the orientation
data from AHRS and the acceleration data from the triaxial
accelerometer, in addition to the orientation filtering that corrects
the raw data coming from the barometer to furnish the right
altitude of the subject. Based on the excellent results achieved
the proposed AHRS, we have developed a series of custom
devices for the automatic evaluation of kinematic parameters
useful to the diagnosis of certain pathologies. In particular, the
developed AHRS has been used as an aid to clinical diagnosis of
patients with Parkinson’s disease, chronic back pain and Multiple
Sclerosis
Indoor localization system for AAL over IPv6 WSN
No full textWireless Sensor Networks are becoming even more a key element in networking and telecommunications especially with the advent of the Internet of Things paradigm, where each single device obtains a unique IPv6 address and is potentially reachable from everywhere through the Internet. Such technologies can be applied in many application fields with great success in terms of optimization of costs and resources, variety of implemented features, level of customization and expandability of each solution. Ambient Assisted Living is definitely one of the most interesting area for WSN and IoT application. In this scenery we propose an applicative example of the use of a IPv6 self configuring WSN with mesh topology. The network is formed by low cost and low power sensor nodes that integrate sub-GHz radio connectivity, belonging to the so-called LLN (Low Power and Lossy Network) scenery. The network stack is fully compatible with the major RFCs about Internet and wireless communications (CSMA, 6LowPAN, uIP, UDP, CoAP, etc.). The case study is a localization system using RSSI feature and does not need additional expensive hardware to be integrated into the nodes. The system proves to be fundamental in indoor environments (houses, clinics, nursing homes) for AAL systems that require localization or tracking of patients and medical equipments. Our tests are performed in extremely complex environment and shown good results localizing targets with an average error of about 2 meters that allows to properly detect the room where targets are located
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