Extraction and Analysis of Respiratory Motion Using Wearable Inertial Sensor System during Trunk Motion

Respiratory activity is an essential vital sign of life that can indicate changes in typical breathing patterns and irregular body functions such as asthma and panic attacks. Many times, there is a need to monitor breathing activity while performing day-to-day functions such as standing, bending, trunk stretching or during yoga exercises. A single IMU (inertial measurement unit) can be used in measuring respiratory motion; however, breathing motion data may be influenced by a body trunk movement that occurs while recording respiratory activity. This research employs a pair of wireless, wearable IMU sensors custom-made by the Department of Electrical Engineering at San Diego State University. After appropriate sensor placement for data collection, this research applies principles of robotics, using the Denavit-Hartenberg convention, to extract relative angular motion between the two sensors. One of the obtained relative joint angles in the “Sagittal” plane predominantly yields respiratory activity. An improvised version of the proposed method and wearable, wireless sensors can be suitable to extract respiratory information while performing sports or exercises, as they do not restrict body motion or the choice of location to gather data.

[1]  H. Gollee,et al.  Real-time detection of respiratory activity using an inertial measurement unit , 2007, 2007 29th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.

[2]  David Elad,et al.  Anatomical model of the human trunk for analysis of respiratory muscles mechanics , 2005, Respiratory Physiology & Neurobiology.

[3]  Yi Su,et al.  A sensor cluster to monitor body kinematics , 2016, 2016 IEEE 13th International Conference on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks (BSN).

[4]  R. Narimani,et al.  A wearable respiratory plethysmography using flexible sensor , 2013 .

[5]  Yi Su,et al.  Low Power Spinal Motion and Muscle Activity Monitor , 2014, 2015 IEEE Global Communications Conference (GLOBECOM).

[6]  Andreas Dietzel,et al.  Skin attachable flexible sensor array for respiratory monitoring , 2016 .