CBM370-Wearable Devices

IV CSE C
2025-26(ODD SEM)
 Unit 1
Wearable Systems - Introduction, Need for Wearable Systems, Drawbacks
of Conventional Systems for Wearable Monitoring, Applications of
Wearable Systems, Types of Wearable Systems, Components of wearable
Systems. Sensors for wearable systems -Inertia movement sensors,
Respiration activity sensor, Inductive plethysmography, Impedance
plethysmography, pneumography, Wearable ground reaction force sensor.
WEARABLE SYSTEMS -
INTRODUCTION
• Wearable technology is any kind of electronic device designed to be worn
on the user's body. Such devices can take many different forms, including
jewelry, accessories, medical devices, and clothing or elements of clothing.
• The term wearable computing implies processing or communications
capabilities, but in reality, the sophistication among wearables can vary.
• The most sophisticated examples of wearable technology include artificial
intelligence (Al) hearing aids, Google Glass and Microsoft's HoloLens, and a
holographic computer in the form of a virtual reality (VR) headset. An
example of a less complex form of wearable technology is a disposable skin
patch with sensors that transmit patient data wirelessly to a control device
in a healthcare facility.
FEATURES OF WEARABLE DEVICES
• 1.Activity Monitoring.
• 2. Bluetooth Enabled.
• 3. Digital Display.
• 4. Health Monitoring.
• 5. Location Tracking.
• 6. Smart Watches.
• 7. Water Resistant / Outdoor Rated.
• 8. Wrist
ОBJECTIVES OF WEARABLE
TECHNOLOGY
• Wearable systems can be broadly defined as mobile electronic devices
that can be unobtrusively embedded in the user's outfit as part of the
clothing or an accessory.
• In particular, unlike conventional mobile systems, they can be
operational and accessed without or with very little hindrance to user
activity.
NEED FOR WEARABLES SYSTEMS
• Fundamentally, wearables can perform the following basic functions
or unit operations
• a.Sense
• b. Process (Analyze)
• c. Store
• d. Transmit
• e. Apply (Utilize)
sensor
• A sensor is a device that detects and responds to some type of input
from the physical environment. The specific input could be light, heat,
motion, moisture, pressure, or any one of a great number of other
environmental phenomena.
Principle of sensor
• Every sensor has different principle of operation, based on the type of
physical quantity it is measuring. The idea is to create a change in the
property/properties of sensor (such as measurement. resistance,
density, shape, temperature etc) as a function of the physical quantity
under measurement.
Different types of sensors
• 1. Temperature Sensor
• 2. Proximity Sensor
• 3. Accelerometer
• 4. IR Sensor (Infrared Sensor)
• 5.Pressure Sensor
• 5. Light Sensor
• 6. Ultrasonic Sensor
• 7. Smoke, Gas and Alcohol Sensor etc..
Wearable device
• Wearable technology (also called wearable gadgets) is a category of
technology devices that can be worn by a consumer and often include
tracking information related to health and fitness.
Working of Wearable devices
• Sensors can also be attached around a wearable device to allow them
to monitor various activity in the area. Most sensors can track motion,
brain activity, heart activity, and muscle activity.
• Miniature computers are also inside some wearable devices, similar
to low smartphones have miniature processors inside of them.
Need for wearable systems
• A wearable device is often used for tracking a wearer's vital signs or
health and fitness related data, location, etc.
• Medical wearables with artificial intelligence and big data are
providing an added value to healthcare with a focus on diagnosis,
treatment, patient monitoring and prevention.
• To diagnose, monitor and prevent future illnesses, healthcare
professionals now routinely use wearable devices such as fitness
tracker or phones. By monitoring physiological data and behavior
these devices boost self-awareness and encourage behavior change.
Smart clothing
• Clothing that monitors the wearer's physical condition. Smart shlirts
and body suits provide biometric data, such as pulse rate,
temperature, muscle stretch, heart rhythm and physical movement,
and the data are transmitted via Bluetooth to an app in real time.
ELEMENTS OF WEARABLES SYSTEMS
• When designing wearable systems to be used for physiological and
biomechanical parameters monitoring, it is important to integrate
sensors easy to use, comfortable to wear, and minimally obtrusive.
• Wearable systems include sensors for detecting physiological signs
placed on-body without discomfort, and possibly with capability of
real-time and continuous recording.
• The system should also be equipped with wireless communication to
transmit signals, although sometimes it is opportune to extract locally
relevant variables, which are transmitted when needed.
• Most sensors embedded into wearable systems need to be placed at
specific body locations, e.g. motion sensors used to track the
movements of body segments, often in direct contact with the skin,
e.g. physiological sensors such as pulse meters or oximeters. However,
it is reasonable to embed sensors within pieces of clothing to make
the wearable system as less obtrusive as possible.
• In general, such systems should also contain some elementary
processing capabilities to perform signal pre-processing and reduce
the amount of data to be transmitted.
• A key technology for wearable systems is the possibility of
implementing robust, cheap microsystems enabling the combination
of all the above functionalities in a single device.
• This technology combines so-called micro-electro-mechanical systems
(MEMS) with advanced electronic packaging technologies.
• MEMS allows complex electronic systems and mechanical structures
(including sensors and even simple motors) to be jointly
manufactured in a single semiconductor chip.
LAYERS OF WEARABLES SYSTEMS
• A generic wearable system can be structured as a stack of different
layers.
• The lowest layer is represented by the body, where the skin is the first
interface with the sensor layer.
• This latter is comprised of three sub-layers:
• garment and sensors,
• conditioning and filtering of the signals
• local processing.
• The processing layer collects the different sensor signals, extracts
specific features and classifies the signals to provide high-level
outcomes for the application layer.
• The application layer can provide the feedback to the user and/or to
the professional, according to the specific applications and to the user
needs.
IMPORTANCE OF WEARABLE
SYSTEMS
• Recent developments embed signal processing in their systems, e.g.
extraction of heart rate, respiration rate and activity level.
• Activity classification and more advanced processing on e.g. heart
signals can be achievable exploiting miniaturization and low-power
consumption of the systems.
• Examples of data classification are : classification of movement
patterns such as sitting, walking or resting by using accelerometer
data or ECG parameters such as ST distance extracted from raw ECG
data.
• Inertial sensors to monitor biomechanical parameters of human body
and sensors to capture physiological signs are addressed, describing
the operating principles and indicating the possible fields of
application.
• when wireless devices are integrated with sensors, it is possible to
acquire and monitor human signals at any environment at any time.
Hence, Internet can be used as a major tool to deliver e-health
services to both developing and developed countries. E-health
services can take advantages of wireless body area network (WBAN),
which can act as an enabling technology.
• A WBAN monitors physiological signals from some tiny sensors with
wireless transmission capability placed either inside or around a
person's body, which are used to collect important health data of a
person during a particular activity medical or sport or training-related
activities.
• Basically, a WBAN system consists of a number of tiny sensor nodes
and a gateway node used to connect them to remote locations (i.e.,
hospital, call center) as shown in Fig 1.
• A number of different terminologies or names have been used for the
gateway device; mainly terminologies such as body control unit (BCU) or
central control unit (CCU) or personnel control unit (PCU) are used.
• The gateway device can be a smart phone or any portable device that can
aggregate collected sensor data and forward them to remote stations.
• The gateway node can connect the sensor nodes to a range of
communication networks.
• These communication networks can be either a standard
telecommunication network, mobile/wireless network, a dedicated medical
center/hospital LAN (local area network) or a public WLAN (wireless local
area network) hotspot, commonly known as the Wi-Fi.
• A WBAN allows a user to store collected data in his/her PDA (personal digital
assistant) or iPod or any other portable devices and then transfer that
information to a suitable computer when a communication link is available.
DRAWBACKS OF CONVENTIONAL
SYSTEMS FOR WEARABLE
MONITORING
• Bulky instruments and complicated procedures, which, in some cases, are
time-consuming and inconvenient.
• require large equipment, blood drawing and conventional bench-top assay
techniques.
• invasive methods of obtaining test samples can also cause discomfort and
pain to patients.
• health monitoring relies on physical, chemical, and biological information
transmitted through the skin.
• environmental conditions including allergen particles in the air, ultraviolet
and other radiation, and the concentration of air pollutants can also be
acquired.
Advantages of Wearable Technology
• Rapid data results can help drive improvements.
• Detailed data can supplement loss analysis and loss trends.
• Can help build a business case for senior management.
• Data from wearable sensors offers promising job risk analysis and
evaluation opportunities for safety and ergonomics practitioners.
• Enhance employee wellness programs.
Disadvantages of Wearable
Technology
• Requires a time commitment to review and analyze data.
• Requires financial commitments and planning.
• Devices could lead to distraction.
• Lack of Data security and privacy.
• Devices could lead to over-trust or under-trust.
APPLICATIONS OF WEARABLE
SYSTEMS
• Wearable technology is not a new category one of the most popular
early incarnations of the wearable technology was HP's calculator
watch, which was introduced in the 1980s.
• In 2010, Nike Sport band was introduced as a device that can
communicate with the sensor hidden in the shoes to tell people the
details about running.
• In 2012, the major companies in international consumer electronics
sector display their wearable devices at trade shows.
• In 2013, the introduction of Google Project Glass that has opened the
era of wearable technology.
Applications In K-12 PE Classes
• Wearable technology can be applied in K-12 physical education
classes and help students to establish health habits and help teachers
adjust exercise intensity and density according to the information
such as heart rate displayed on apps.
Other applications
• Campus orienteering exercise-IMS
• Rules of campus orienteering-QR codes.
• Cell phone-Charging Shirt.
• Forecasting changes in mood, stress, and health
• Measuring blood alcohol content
• Measuring athletic performance
• Monitoring how sick the user is
• Detecting early signs of infection
• Long-term monitoring of patients with heart and circulatory problems that records an
electrocardiogram and is self-moistening
• Health Risk Assessment applications, including age-dependent diseases
• Automatic documentation of care activities
TYPES OF WEARABLE SYSTEMS
• SMART WATCHES
• FITNESS TRACKERS
• SMART JEWELRY
• GAME SIMULATORS
• SMART CLOTHING
• SMART GLASSES
• HEARTBEAT TRACKERS & BLOOD PRESSURE MONITORS
• SMART EARBUDS
• SMART CONTACT LENS
IMPLEMENTATION SCENARIO OF WIRELESS BODY AREA NETWORK
• The control device can be placed on the body like a mobile phone as
shown in Fig.2. or it can be placed at an accessible location.
• Most suitable technologies for this link and WMTS(Wireless Medical
Telemetry Service) are ZigBee, Bluetooth, loWPAN, at an accessible
location.
• The main task of the BCU(body control unit) is to transfer data to a PC
or to a smart phone. Wireless technologies used on this segment
(BCU to PC or to an Internet device) could be a mobile communication
network, a satellite link, or a Wi-Fi link.
• When the Internet is used, the data collected at this PC can be
transferred to remote stations in remote medical centers across the
network.
• As described in Fig 2, the collected sensor data can easily be transferred to
remote stations (i.e., medical centers) with the existing wireless and
information technology infrastructures such as satellite, mobile
communication system, Internet, etc.
• Accessing the medical data of injured people through Internet is an effective
solution at the moment, which will allow medical professionals at the
hospital to collect and evaluate data while patients are being transferred to
the hospital in an emergency vehicle.
• If provisioned, these data can also be accessed outside the emergency areas
as they will be made available online.
• The control device will be similar to smart phones.
• They will be like minicomputers, which will most likely be connected via a
wireless technology such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, 3G/2G networks or the
satellite (VSAT: very small aperture terminal).
• Eg.Home care Monitoring System & Emergency Rooms Monitoring.
COMPONENTS OF WEARABLE
SYSTEMS
1.Control
• Wearable-specific microcontrollers are small, so as to be comfortable and discrete.
2. Input/Output
In place of pins, these boards have metal eyelets which you can loop conductive
thhread through to sew soft circuit connections.
3. Conductive Textiles
• A material containing metals, such as silver or stainless steel, through which an electrical
current can flow is said to be conductive. Wearable systeins can make use of these
materials in a variety of ways, such as:
• Thread for making circuits
• Fabric for capacitive touch sensor
• s Hook-and-loop for switches
4.Sensors
• Sensors gather information about the environment, the user, or both. Examples of the former include
light, temperature, motion (ACC), and location (GPS). Examples of the latter include heart rate (ECG),
brain waves (EEG), and muscle tension (EMG).
5.Power
• Boards with an integrated holder for a lithium coin battery are nice for low power
projects that need to be self contained.
6. Actuators
• Actuators such as LEDs, buzzers or speakers, and servomotors are what make things
happen.
7. Networking
• To communicate with smart devices, the internet, or other wearable systems, you need
wireless connectivity. In addition to Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
SENSORS FOR WEARABLE SYSTEMS
SENSORS
• When designing wearable systems to be used for physiological and
biomechanical parameters monitoring, it is important to integrate
sensors easy to use, comfortable to wear, and minimally obtrusive.
BIOMECHANICAL SENSORS
• Biomechanical sensors are thought to be used to record kinematic
parameters of body Knowledge of body movement and gesture can
be a means to detect movement disturbances related to a specific
pathology or helpful to contextualize physiologies information within
specific physical activities.
DIFFERENT SENSORS USED FOR
SMART CLOTHING
• Wearable electronics refer to textiles and clothing with integrated
electronic technology or other computing devices that provide smart
functionalities.
• Wearable technology that relies on sensors to measure how the body
maneuvers offers consumers data about themselves.
Types
1. Accelerometer
Accelerometers are sensors used in wearables. Teir brand of acceleration, such as gravity and linear,
demonstrates their sensing capabilities. Meanwhile, their measuring ability enables the programning of
measured data for different purposes.
2. Gyroscopes
• Gyroscopes are also a common wearable sensor. They difſer from accelerometers by recording only
angular accelerations. In some implementations, the accelerometer is used to measure rotational
acceleration, while some systems would like to incorporate both for filtering errors. Gyroscopes
increase the precision ofthe data tracked and numerous types are available, including gas bearing,
mechanical and optical.
3. Magnetometers
• Magnetometers can be integrated to create an inertial measurement unit (IMU) with
accelerometers and gyroscopes. All of these sensors can feature three axes each, are very similar to
a compass and can improve balance. While gyroscopes and accelerometers are usually used with
them, magnetometers match them by filtering the motion orientation.
4.Global positioning system (GPS)
• GPS is a common sensor used on many devices such as smartpliones and smartwatchhes. It is used
for scanning and informing users of their location. Information is sent to a satellite to quantify exact
location and time. This serves as a transmitter and a receiver in which the information is returned to
the sensor to notify the location.
5.Heart rate sensors
• Various techniques and sensors are available for measuring heart rate. One method uses capacitive
sensing to idealize the electrode (sensor) and the skin as two parts of a conventional capacitor.
6.Pedometers
• Pedometers are typically found in wearables focused on plıysical health and can count the user's
steps while running or walking.
• There are two variants of pedometers: electrical and mechanical. The former is the most popular
form today and depend on MEMS technology for efficiency, but still operate on mechanical
pedometer-based principles. The pendulum function is used to assess the pedometer user's steps.
• A tiny metal pendulum is used in two-ended pedometers, one with a screw. The hammer swings
and hits the other every time a user takes a step and then returns to its original location. The
mechanism is linked via spring to an electronic counting circuit.
• At first, there is no current, and therefore an open circuit is closed each time the hammer hits the
other side. Thus, current starts flowing. Once the pendulum moves back to its initial point, the
circuit closes again, and the pendulum rotation starts anew. This allows the circuit to understand
each step.
7.Pressure sensors

• Pressure sensors operate from strain gauges.When pressure is applied to

sensors, the circuit causes a chiange in resistance. Mechanical quantities like
force are observed in many ways and are transformed into resistance-
dependent electronic measurements.
• This method of measuring pressure is achicved through the construction of a
Wheatstone Bridge, which can track static or dynamic resistance changes. The
sensing device will comprise one, two or four arnms in the configuration of
theWheatstone Bridge. The number depends on the use of the device (lrow
many in tension and compression).
• The sensor mechanism allows them to be integrated into extermal factors such
as ball contact monitoring equipment.
Integration of sensors into wear

• A microcontroller is a key component to enable wearable technology

to operate.
• It is commonly seen as a small computer (the chip system) that allows
the integration of the internet of things (loT) with the desired
application. Most significantly, it eliminates the use of many electronic
components to execute different functions on a single chip.
• Due to its ease in programming, reprogramming, cost, size,
connectivity with other sensors and the ability to handle complex
functions, including graphic displays, it is best used in wearable
technology.
INERTIAL MOVEMENT SENSORS
• The inertial sensor, also known as the inertial navigation system (INS),
uses an accelerometer and gyro to determine spacecraft attitude in
relation to the inertial system. The accelerometer is used to test the
motion acceleration of the carrier, which is then used to calculate the
real-time location of the carrier.
• Inertial sensors are composed of accelerometers and gyroscopes,
which measure specific force and turn rate, respectively. The so-called
inertial measurement unit contains three mutually orthogonal
accelerometers and three mutually orthogonal gyroscopes. Therefore,
the acceleration and turn rate measurements are triads.
• the recent advances in technology have led to the design and
development of new tools in the field of motion detection which are
comfortable for the user, portable and easily usable in non-structured
environments. Current prototypes realized by these emergent
technologies utilize micro-transducers applied to the subject body (as
described in the current paragraph) or textile-based strain sensors.
• The first category, instead, includes devices based on inertial sensors
(mainly accelerometers and gyroscopes) that are directly applied on
the body segment to be monitored.
• These sensors can be realized on a single chip (MEMS technology)
with low cost and outstanding miniaturization. Accelerometers are
widely used for the automatic discrimination of physical activity of
body segment inclination with respect to absolute vertical.