Design of an Integrated Wearable Multi-Sensor Platform Based on Flexible Materials for Neonatal Monitoring

Abstract

For infants admitted at neonatal intensive care unit, the continuous monitoring of health parameters is critical for their optimal treatment and outcomes. So it's crucial to provide proper treatment, accurate and comfortable monitoring conditions for newborn infants. In this paper, we propose wearable sensor systems integrated with flexible material based non-invasive sensors for neonatal monitoring. The system aims at providing reliable vital signs monitoring as well as comfortable clinical environments for neonatal care. The system consists of a smart vest and a cloud platform. In the smart vest, a novel stretching sensor based on Polydimethylsiloxane-Graphene (PDMS-Graphene) compound is created to detect newborns' respiration signal; textile-based dry electrodes are developed to measure Electrocardiograph (ECG) signals; inertial measurement units (IMUs) are embedded to obtain movement information including accelerated speed and angular velocity of newborn wrists. Experiments were conducted to systematically test the sensing related characteristics of the aforementioned flexible materials and the performance of the proposed multi-sensor platform. The results show that the proposed system can achieve high quality signals. The wearable sensor platform is promising for continuous long term monitoring of neonates. The multi-modal physiological and behavioral signals measured by the platform can be further processed for clinical decision support on the neonatal health status.

A review of wearable and unobtrusive sensing technologies for chronic disease management

“…2 lists typical prototypes for wearable ECG monitoring.

Figure 2 Prototypes for wearable ECG monitoring: (a) wrist-worn ECG monitor [ 20 ]; (b) wearable ECG smart vest system [ 15 ]; (c) wearable singlet type with TEs [ 16 ]; (d) ear-ECG device [ 18 ]; (e) and (f) wearable ECG vest for neonatal monitoring [ 28 ], [ 29 ].

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Recent Progress in Flexible Wearable Sensors for Vital Sign Monitoring

“…In other applications for wearable signs monitoring, we know that ECG monitoring is also very useful for pregnant women and newborns. In order to meet the requirements of long-term continuous fetal monitoring, Chen et al [ 19 ] developed a textile-based dry electrode to measure the ECG signal of infants. The ECG sensor is connected with the acquisition module through five snaps.…”

“… Non-contact sensors: ( a ) insulation electrode and experimental device; ( b ) two different products of OM garments (the OM shirt for men and the OM bra for women [ 17 ]); ( c ) the design of sandwich cushion improves the motion artifact [ 19 ] © 2020 IEEE. …”

Low Power Optimisations for IoT Wearable Sensors Based on Evaluation of Nine QRS Detection Algorithms

“…A plethora of works have been reported in literature regarding development wireless wearable sensors for health monitoring [27], [28], [29], [30], [31]. One of the main focus in existing works is to accurately record and display the data.…”

“…The work focuses on establishing the accuracy of the measured data and reports a power consumption of 1.85 mA at 250 Hz sampling. In [31], an integrated wearable sensor platform for neonatal monitoring is reported. The work uses a graphene based flexible material for electrodes.…”