Michele Caldara

A Novel Body Sensor Network for Parkinson's Disease Patients Rehabilitation Assessment

A miniaturized wireless Attitude and Heading Reference System has been developed with the primary purpose to achieve a body sensor network for motor performance quantitative analysis of Parkinsons disease patients during rehabilitation sessions. The paper describes the performance of the single node, the peculiarities of the developed wearable network and the custom software developed specifically for the Extended Timed-Up-and-Go test. An experimental protocol on Parkinsons Disease patients is currently ongoing. This paper reports the preliminary results, involving 13 patients (mean age 64.6±9) with a moderate disease level and 4 controls (mean age 64.3±4). The data taken during rehabilitation exercise have been analyzed and outcomes are discussed.

A novel Qi-standard compliant full-bridge wireless power charger for low power devices

In this paper a Qi-standard compliant compact wireless power charger system, composed of a wireless power transmitter and a wireless power receiver, is presented. The developed system aims to be compliant with the latest revision of Wireless Power Consortiums directives and uses a full-bridge resonant inverter as the main power transmitter architecture. The wireless power transmitter and receiver have been designed with ultra low power and high efficiency electronics components thereby maximizing the overall power transfer efficiency.

A wearable sweat pH and body temperature sensor platform for health, fitness and wellness applications

The paper presents the development of a compact system able to measure sweat pH, by means of a functionalized textile and a color sensor, and the skin temperature. The aim is to achieve a wearable miniaturized system capable to estimate the body hydration level during exercise or a heat stress. Potential users span from elderly, first responders to athletes. The system has been characterized in the laboratory by using buffer solution, artificial sweat, and an oven for temperature sensor calibrations. Preliminary on-body trials are also reported in the final part of the paper.

A wearable sensor platform to monitor sweat pH and skin temperature

This work presents a wearable sensing system, aimed to monitor sweat pH and skin temperature in a noninvasive way. The wireless interface and the body coupling via a smart textile make it particularly comfortable and unobtrusive for the wearer; the applications extend from high risks patients hydration monitoring in a home-care environment, to fitness and wellness applications.

Low power textile-based wearable sensor platform for pH and temperature monitoring with wireless battery recharge

Wearable sensing electronics is gradually coming to the foreground, due to the increasing awareness for health, environment and pollution matters. The inclusion of sensors into garments represents one of the most comfortable solutions for the wearer; this can be achieved by associating miniaturized electronics with smart fabrics. Basing our experience on previous studies on pH sensing, a novel smart fabric has been developed as a pH-meter: an organic and atoxic halochromic dye is sol-gel fixed on the textile for durability and reversibility purposes, and the readout is performed with a miniaturized novel sensing platform, including extremely low-power color and temperature sensors, wireless data transmission and a wireless battery recharge system. The potential applications vary from sweat pH monitoring for sport performances or medical research, to measurements of environmental conditions.

Indoor distance estimated from Bluetooth Low Energy signal strength: Comparison of regression models

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) is a wireless technology for exchanging data, over short distances, designed for the Internet-of-Things era. As widely supported by wearable devices, BLE has the potential to become an alternative for indoor-localization and proximity sensing. The aim of this work was to perform a thorough characterization of the RSSI-distance relationship under controlled conditions using two BLE devices. Four calibration models underwent to a comparative evaluation analysis. The best results were obtained using a polynomial model with a mean distance percentage error equal to 25.7% (0.4 m) in the range 0-3 m. An overall improvement of 14.3% (0.24 m) in the distance estimate compared to the exponential model commonly adopted in the literature was reported.

Application of a wireless BSN for gait and balance assessment in the elderly

In developed countries, sedentary lifestyle is a major health risk factor. In elderly people, such mobility limitation is worsened by the reduced self-confidence and the fear of falling, leading to a further motor deterioration. This work presents an application of a wireless Body Sensor Network as a simple and easy-to-use individual motor function assessment tool for elderly. The wearable nodes have been exploited to monitor the body during the Six-Minute Walk Test and a set of stability tests. During the exercises, wearable sensors inertial data, along with the real-time orientation of the platforms, have been exploited to obtain gold-standard indicators (such as total distance) and some additional gait parameters. Stability tests consist of a series of single and double stance exercises aimed to assess the balance of the subject. This paper presents the system, the processing and the preliminary results on two subjects groups of different ages (31±6 and 70.8±7).

Radon fast detection and environmental monitoring with a portable wireless system

The World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) have already classified radon as a human carcinogen and have demonstrated a correlation between environmental radon concentration and lung cancer risk. Radon dosimetry supplies valuable information about radioactive health risks in indoor environments. Dose measurements are traditionally based on laboratory analysis of alpha-ray traces in ionization chambers exposed to environmental air or passive detectors based on polycarbonate material. The main goal of this work is to develop a portable and small system with real-time indoor Radon detection capabilities. The developed system, with embedded processing and wireless communication capabilities, is based on a Zinc-Sulfat screen coupled to a Silicon Photomultiplier (SiPM) transducer, low cost read-out electronics and system ventilation. The device is able to monitor environmental data, so it could have multiple uses in research and industrial applications.

Development of a potentially implantable pressure sensing platform with RFID interface

This work deals with the development of an active RFID tag, ISO 15693 compliant, aimed to monitor blood pressure continuously and to determine its minimum and maximum values with an embedded algorithm. The results are stored onboard in a non-volatile memory, providing the data under interrogation by means of an external RFID reader. The prototype which has been developed is a miniaturized and low-power pressure sensing platform that is mainly intended as a potentially implantable system in test animals for pharmacological research, but could also operate in environmental and industrial applications.

Textile Based Colorimetric pH Sensing: A Platform for Future Wearable pH Monitoring

Wearable electronics is a natural application field of miniaturized sensors, low-power analog and digital devices, microcontrollers and efficient power conversion components, that are able to manage battery power in an optimal way. In the wearable electronics field for biomedical applications, smart textiles are very attractive as sensing devices. They can be fixed with dedicated indicators in order to detect physical quantities which could otherwise be difficult to measure with standard methods. This paper presents the development of a novel platform that using smart textiles, retrieves the information about the pH value by measuring color, which is easily manageable by a readout electronic system. The pH meter consists of a cotton fabric, with a color indicator sol gel fixed on it, in association with an extremely low-power and high-sensitivity electronic system. The device main blocks were fabricated and characterized, with the aim to obtain a wearable sweat pH-meter. The paper discusses the electronic readout innovative features, from the standpoints of performance and sensing properties.