Frediani Gabriele, Botondi Bianca, Quartini Lorenzo, Zonfrillo Giovanni, Bocchi Leonardo, Carpi Federico
University of Florence, Department of Industrial Engineering, Florence, Italy.
University of Florence, Department of Information Engineering, Florence, Italy.
Stud Health Technol Inform. 2019;261:103-108.
Measuring the kinematics of human body movements is important for several biomedical and non-biomedical uses, such as rehabilitation, sports medicine, control of virtual reality systems, etc. This is typically performed employing accelerometers, electrogoniometers, electromagnetic sensors or cameras, which however are usually bulky, or can cause discomfort to the user, or are insufficiently accurate, or require expensive instrumentation. As an alternative to those state-of-the-art systems, stretchable piezocapacitive sensors based on dielectric elastomers (DE) represent a recently described competitive technology, which might enable wearable, lightweight and cost-effective devices. DE sensors consist of stretchable capacitors whose mechanical deformation causes a change of capacitance, which can be measured and related to linear or angular motions, depending on the sensors' arrangement. Here, we present a wearable wireless system able to monitor the flexion and torsion of the lumbar region of the back. The system consists of two DE sensors arranged on shoulder straps, and a custom-made wireless electronics designed to measure the capacitance of the sensors and calibrate them when the user wears them for the first time. We describe preliminary results related to the characterisation of the sensors and the electronics.
测量人体运动的运动学对于多种生物医学和非生物医学用途都很重要，比如康复、运动医学、虚拟现实系统控制等。这通常采用加速度计、电子测角仪、电磁传感器或摄像头来进行，然而这些设备通常体积庞大，或者会给用户带来不适，或者不够精确，又或者需要昂贵的仪器。作为那些先进系统的替代方案，基于介电弹性体（DE）的可拉伸压电容传感器代表了一种最近被描述的具有竞争力的技术，它可能使可穿戴、轻便且经济高效的设备成为可能。DE传感器由可拉伸电容器组成，其机械变形会导致电容变化，根据传感器的布置情况，该变化可被测量并与线性或角向运动相关联。在此，我们展示了一种能够监测背部腰椎区域屈伸和扭转的可穿戴无线系统。该系统由两个布置在肩带上的DE传感器以及一个定制的无线电子设备组成，该无线电子设备旨在测量传感器的电容，并在用户首次佩戴时对其进行校准。我们描述了与传感器和电子设备特性相关的初步结果。
