An Optical Fibre-Based Sensor for Respiratory Monitoring
Marek Krehel,
Michel Schmid,
René M. Rossi,
Luciano F. Boesel,
Gian-Luca Bona,
Lukas J. Scherer
Affiliations
Marek Krehel
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Protection and Physiology, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, 9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland
Michel Schmid
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Protection and Physiology, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, 9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland
René M. Rossi
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Protection and Physiology, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, 9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland
Luciano F. Boesel
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Protection and Physiology, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, 9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland
Gian-Luca Bona
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Protection and Physiology, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, 9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland
Lukas J. Scherer
Empa, Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology, Laboratory for Protection and Physiology, Lerchenfeldstrasse 5, 9014 St. Gallen, Switzerland
In this paper, a textile-based respiratory sensing system is presented. Highly flexible polymeric optical fibres (POFs) that react to applied pressure were integrated into a carrier fabric to form a wearable sensing system. After the evaluation of different optical fibres, different setups were compared. To demonstrate the feasibility of such a wearable sensor, the setup featuring the best performance was placed on the human torso, and thus it was possible to measure the respiratory rate. Furthermore, we show that such a wearable system enables to keep track of the way of breathing (diaphragmatic, upper costal and mixed) when the sensor is placed at different positions of the torso. A comparison of the results with the output of some commercial respiratory measurements devices confirmed the utility of such a monitoring device.
