Abraham Jose K, Sullivan Shawn, Ranganathan Sridhar
Kimberly-Clark Corporation, Neenah, WI 54956, USA.
Annu Int Conf IEEE Eng Med Biol Soc. 2011;2011:4745-8. doi: 10.1109/IEMBS.2011.6091175.
Sleep has profound effects on the physical and mental well-being of an individual. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Sleep Disorder Research Plan gives particular emphasis to non-invasive sleep monitoring methods. Older adults experience sleep fragmentation due to sleep disorders. Unobtrusive non-contact monitoring can be the only realistic solution for long term home-based sleep monitoring. The demand for a low-cost and non-invasive sleep monitoring system for in-home use is more than before due to an increasingly stressful life style. Cost and complexity of current sensor elements hinder the development of low-cost sleep monitoring devices for in-home use. This paper presents the design, development and implementation of a low-cost and disposable pressure sensor mat that could be useful for in-home sleep and movement monitoring applications. The sensor mat design is based on a compressible foam sandwiched between two orthogonal arrays of cPaper capacitance sensors. A low-cost conducting paper has been developed for use as the capacitance sensor electrode. Typical mat design uses a 3 mm thick foam with 5 mm row/column grid array shows that it has a measurement resolution of 0.1 PSI pressure. The resolution can be controlled by both modifying properties of the conducting paper and the foam. Since this pressure mat design is based on low-cost paper, the sensor electrodes are disposable or semi-durable and hence it is ideal for the use in point-of-care physiological monitoring, pervasive healthcare and consumer electronic devices.
睡眠对个人的身心健康有着深远影响。美国国立卫生研究院（NIH）的睡眠障碍研究计划特别强调非侵入性睡眠监测方法。老年人由于睡眠障碍会经历睡眠碎片化。对于长期的居家睡眠监测而言，不引人注意的非接触式监测可能是唯一现实的解决方案。由于生活方式压力日益增大，对用于家庭的低成本非侵入性睡眠监测系统的需求比以往任何时候都更大。当前传感器元件的成本和复杂性阻碍了用于家庭的低成本睡眠监测设备的开发。本文介绍了一种低成本一次性压力传感器垫的设计、开发和实现，该传感器垫可用于家庭睡眠和运动监测应用。传感器垫的设计基于夹在两个正交的电容式纸传感器阵列之间的可压缩泡沫。已开发出一种低成本导电纸用作电容传感器电极。典型的垫子设计使用3毫米厚的泡沫，带有5毫米的行/列网格阵列，显示其具有0.1磅力/平方英寸压力的测量分辨率。该分辨率可通过修改导电纸和泡沫的特性来控制。由于这种压力垫设计基于低成本纸张，传感器电极是一次性或半耐用的，因此非常适合用于即时医疗生理监测、普及型医疗保健和消费电子设备。
