IEEE Access (Jan 2021)

Body Core Temperature Estimation Using New Compartment Model With Vital Data From Wearable Devices

  • Akimasa Hirata,
  • Taiki Miyazawa,
  • Ryota Uematsu,
  • Sachiko Kodera,
  • Yuki Hashimoto,
  • Kazuhiko Takagahara,
  • Yuichi Higuchi,
  • Hiroyoshi Togo,
  • Takashi Kawahara,
  • Hideto Tanaka

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2021.3110252
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 9
pp. 124452 – 124462

Abstract

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With increasing heat-wave frequency, the prevention and public awareness of heat-related illnesses has become an essential topic. In the standard for heat strain and stress, empirical guidelines to prevent excess core temperature rise above 1 °C have been prescribed for workers. However, measuring core temperature change in our daily life or working place is not straightforward. The estimation of core temperature from measured vital signals in a non-invasive manner is thus essential for the management of heat stress or strain. Here, we propose an estimation method for core temperature change by a simplified thermodynamics model with the measured heart rate and ambient conditions (temperature and relative humidity). Our proposed model is based on a two-layer two-compartment model with tuned parameters, which were derived from comparison between the computations using high-resolution anatomical human body model. Our model exhibited good agreement with the measured core temperature rise; the computed and measured core temperature rise for the naked trial were 0.54 °C and 0.53 °C, whereas those for the clothed trial were 0.70 °C, and 0.71 °C, respectively. Furthermore, our compartment model with vital data measured from a wearable device achieved good estimation in real time for field measurement in addition to computational replication with a previous study.

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