Health monitoring integrated in work wear
Continuous monitoring of physiological parameters is not only a target for medical applications; it could also be used by different professionals to protect from dangerous situations and injuries. The projects directed towards professional make use of earlier developed technologies such as conductive sensors for the measurement of heart and breathing rate and implements these possibilities into a context, for example the firefighter situations. Several of these projects combines the research on smart textiles and research in more traditional areas, for example new type of protective coatings.
CONTEXT
The objective of the Context project [Context] is to create a system where different types of sensors are incorporated into textiles to be used in continuous monitoring of individuals. Contactless sensors were developed for the purpose of measuring muscle activity as well as heart rate signals. The sensors were integrated into textile to realize a prototype of a wearable vest where the combination of measurements was used to detect stress for the users.
PROETEX
The Proetex project [Proetex] aims to rescue firefighters and civil protection workers using the wireless monitoring of heart rate and temperature measurement. In this project, the heart rate was measured using integrated textile sensors while temperature was measures via integrated conventional temperature sensors. The concept consists of a belt and a tight-fitting t-shirt and a wearable interface for monitoring the operator’s health status and potential risk in the environment, figure 2.