Respiratory and heart rate monitoring using an FBG 3D-printed wearable system

Cátia Tavares; Cátia Leitão; Daniela Lo Presti; M F Domingues; Nélia Alberto; Hugo Silva; Paulo Antunes

doi:10.1364/BOE.452115

Respiratory and heart rate monitoring using an FBG 3D-printed wearable system

Biomed Opt Express. 2022 Mar 21;13(4):2299-2311. doi: 10.1364/BOE.452115. eCollection 2022 Apr 1.

Authors

Cátia Tavares^{1

2}, Cátia Leitão^{1

2}, Daniela Lo Presti³, M F Domingues², Nélia Alberto², Hugo Silva^{4

5}, Paulo Antunes^{1

2}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Physics & I3N, University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
² Instituto de Telecomunicações and University of Aveiro, Campus Universitário de Santiago, 3810-193 Aveiro, Portugal.
³ Unit of Measurements and Biomedical Instrumentation, Departmental Faculty of Engineering, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, 00128 Rome, Italy.
⁴ Instituto de Telecomunicações, Instituto Superior Técnico, University of Lisbon, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal.
⁵ PLUX - Wireless Biosignals, S.A, Lisboa, Portugal.

Abstract

This work proposes a 3D-printed sensor based on fiber Bragg grating (FBG) technology for respiratory rate (RR) and heart rate (HR) monitoring. Each sensor is composed of a single FBG fully encapsulated into a 3D-printable Flexible, during the printing process. Sensors with different material thicknesses and infill densities were tested. The sensor with the best metrological properties was selected and preliminary assessed in terms of capability of monitoring RR and HR on three users. Preliminary results proved that the developed sensor can be a valuable easy-to-fabricate solution, with high reproducibility and high strain sensitivity to chest wall deformations due to breathing and heart beating.