A BLE-Connected Piezoresistive and Inertial Chest Band for Remote Monitoring of the Respiratory Activity by an Android Application: Hardware Design and Software Optimization

Breathing is essential for human life. Issues related to respiration can be an indicator of problems the cardiorespiratory system; thus, accurate breathing monitoring fundamental establishing patient’s condition. This paper presents a ready-to-use and discreet chest band respiratory parameters based on piezoresistive transduction mechanism. In detail, it relies strain sensor realized with pressure-sensitive fabric (EeonTex LTT-SLPA-20K) movements induced by respiration. addition, includes Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), which used remove motion artefacts from acquired signal, thereby improving measurement reliability. Moreover, comprises low-power conditioning acquisition section that processes signal sensors, providing reliable rate (RR), in addition other parameters, such as inhalation (TI) exhalation (TE) times, inhalation-to-exhalation ratio (IER), flow (V). The device wirelessly transmits extracted host device, where custom mobile application displays them. Different test campaigns were carried out evaluate performance designed measuring RR, comparing measurements provided those obtained breath count. six users, different genders, ages, physical constitutions, involved tests. results demonstrated effectiveness proposed approach detecting RR. achieved was line RR systems textiles, but use more powerful or have low wearability. particular, inertia-assisted Pearson correlation coefficient respect count 0.96 when user seated. Finally, Bland–Altman analysis developed system 0.68 Breaths Per Minute (BrPM) mean difference (MD), Limits Agreement (LoAs) +3.20 −1.75 BrPM