Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA.
IEEE Trans Biomed Eng. 2012 Nov;59(11):3230-7. doi: 10.1109/TBME.2012.2208458.
Real-time monitoring of human physical activity (PA) is important for assessing the intensity of activity and exposure to environmental pollutions. A wireless wearable multisenor integrated measurement system (WIMS) has been designed for real-time measurement of the energy expenditure and breathing volume of human subjects under free-living conditions. To address challenges posted by the limited battery life and data synchronization requirement among multiple sensors in the system, the ZigBee communication platform has been explored for energy-efficient design. Two algorithms have been developed (multiData packaging and slot-data-synchronization) and coded into a microcontroller (MCU)-based sensor circuitry for real-time control of wireless data communication. Experiments have shown that the design enables continued operation of the wearable system for up to 68 h, with the maximum error for data synchronization among the various sensor nodes (SNs) being less than 24 ms. Experiment under free-living conditions have shown that the WIMS is able to correctly recognize the activity intensity level 86% of the time. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the energy-efficient wireless design for human PA monitoring.
实时监测人体的体力活动（PA）对于评估活动强度和暴露于环境污染物的程度非常重要。本研究设计了一种无线可穿戴多传感器集成测量系统（WIMS），用于在自由生活条件下实时测量人体的能量消耗和呼吸量。为了解决系统中多个传感器电池寿命有限和数据同步要求带来的挑战，我们探索了 ZigBee 通信平台以实现节能设计。我们开发了两种算法（多数据封装和时隙数据同步），并将其编码到基于微控制器（MCU）的传感器电路中，以实现无线数据通信的实时控制。实验表明，该设计可使可穿戴系统持续运行长达 68 小时，并且各个传感器节点（SN）之间的数据同步最大误差小于 24 毫秒。在自由生活条件下的实验表明，WIMS 能够正确识别 86%的活动强度水平。这些结果证明了用于人体 PA 监测的节能无线设计的有效性。
