Wearable Sensors

Final Presentation 05-10-04

Problem Background
MIT Research Affective Wearable Computers
Inferred Transmission (short range) Bulky Design, hard to wear 20 Samples per second

Goals and Objectives

To create a wearable device that reads temperature, skin conductance, and blood volume pulse and transmits data wirelessly to a computer, where it will be displayed in real time.

Expected Product Layout

Blood Volume Pulse (BVP) Temperature Galvanic Skin Conductor

Lapaic Wireless Transmitter

Transmission Board Team

Lapaic Wireless Receiver Microcontroller GUI

Sensors Team

Software Team

Team Overview
Sensors Team
Phillip Hay Rosy Logioia Gouri Shintri

Transmission / Microcontroller Board Team

Christina Hernandez Clayton Smith Adam Stevenson

Software Team
Daniel Bishop Josh Handley

Sensors
BVP Detection and Filtering BVP Subtraction and Offsetting

Temperature

Galvanic Skin Conductance

Sensors (Design Specs)

Strengths
Compact Wearable Low power

Weaknesses
Poor quality board and parts Sensitive signals Inconsistent signals (BVP)

Transmission Board Layout

Schematic PCB Layout

Transmission Board (Design Specs)

Strengths
Size (1.8 square) Potential wireless transceiver and microcontroller on same board

Weaknesses
Wasted space where Chipcon was originally soldered onto board Separate transceiver / microcontroller boards

Software Overview
Divided into 2 programs that run concurrently: Cygnal microcontroller PC: The Wearable Sensor Display Utility (WeaSeL) Connected through a USB Connection

Microcontroller Software
Microcontroller Code: Interrupt Driven Polls data from A/D converter every X seconds. Transmits it to PC via USB using a custom packet protocol.

MCU to Computer USB Connection

Used to connect the microcontroller to the computer

The device uses a simple FIFO interface

The high data speed rate coupled with a ~64k byte buffer on the computer, allows for our sensor technology to quickly send large amounts of data points to the computer for processing The device is powered by the computer through the USB connection and therefore no additional power constraints are added to the project

From: http://www.dlpdesign.com/usb/

Microcontroller / USB Connection (Design Specs)

Strengths
C-based IDE Interrupt Driven
No wasted clock cycles Easier to maintain code

USB
High Data Rate Built in Buffering System Easy to integrate w/ .NET C# 1.1 Compliant

Weaknesses
Microcontroller clock somewhat erratic ADC has some spill over

WeaSeL
Reads data from the USB port Real time display of sensor readings, similar to oscilloscope Can save readings to a file for future comparison

WeaSeL (Design Specs)

Strengths
Easy to visualize changes in data User-friendly

Weaknesses
USB buffering may cause WeaSeL to lag or stall

Final Product Layout

Blood Volume Pulse (BVP) Temperature Microcontroller GUI

Galvanic Skin Conductor

Sensors Team

Lapaic Wireless Transmitter

Software Team

Transmission / Microcontroller Board Team

Lapaic Wireless Receiver

Project Status
Due to lack of time and equipment, our team was not able to complete wireless transmission of data. The transmission code is currently being reviewed by Laipac Corporation.

Project Integration

Sensor board hooked up to user and microcontroller

Microcontroller on evaluation board hooked up to USB

Team Management
Issues Schedule Conflicts Areas of Expertise Time Management (other classes, work, graduation, etc) Resolving the Issues Communication Division of Work Weekly Team Meetings

Budget
USB Software Lapaic Transmission Transmission / Microcontroller Board Parts Board Fabrication Sensor Board Parts Fabrication of Sensor Boards Total $ 22.50 $ 65.00 $ 250.00 Free $ 105.45 $ 80.00 ~ $512.95

Engineering Standards and Safety

Easy to produce because of availability of parts
Product is for medical purposes

Product is powered by batteries at low voltage

Batteries must be disposed of properly to prevent environmental harm

Project Sponsors
This project was completed with the help of the Computer Science Department at Texas A&M University, especially Dr. Ricardo Gutierrez, Dr. Steve Liu, and Dr. Cote from the Biomedical Engineering Department. The project was financially sponsored by Applied Materials and the National Science Foundation.

Demonstration Double-click to Play