Smart textile based on FBG sensors for breath-by-breath respiratory monitoring: tests on women

The use of wearable systems for monitoring vital parameters has gained wide popularity in several medical fields, especially in the respiratory monitoring. The focus of the present study is the experimental assessment of a male-fit smart textile based on twelve fiber Bragg grating sensors for the monitoring of respiratory parameters on eight female volunteers. In particular, breath-by-breath temporal respiratory parameters (i.e., respiratory period, breathing frequency, duration of inspiratory and expiratory phases), and breath-by-breath volume variations (i.e., tidal volume measurements) have been estimated by the sensor’s outputs of the t-shirt. Results show good agreement between measurements carried out by the smart textile and the reference instrument (i.e., motion capture system with passive markers), with a bias of 0.002 s for the respiratory period and of 0.014 breaths·$\mathbf{min}^{\mathbf {-1}}$ for breathing frequency. However, bias found in the comparison of breath-bybreath tidal volumes discourages the use of the present smart textile for volume monitoring in female population. The promising results promote further development of the system to allow continuous monitoring in clinical setting and for tele-monitoring purposes.