Expertise: Pressure / Force Analysis Additional Information

SAM3 Expertise Areas: Pressure / Force Analysis

The applications of pressure and force sensors by the team has covered an extensive series of applications:

Vital Sign Assessment

• These mats have been validated the use of these unobtrusive mats for central sleep apnea screening / detection such as the placement under a mattress within a bed.
• Signal processing algorithms have been proposed to measure the breathing characteristics of a bed occupant including respiratory disturbances and respiratory effort.
• Additional work proposed a robust coherent sensor combining algorithm with decision directed reversal correction.

Movement Assessment

• They have also been used for torso movements measurement of bed transfer characteristics such as sit-to-stand transfer duration, symmetry and bouncing.
• The mats have also been used on the floor to better characterize bed exits and to measure the standing stability of patients.
• Methods to detect the lying posture is important in optimizing the parameters of the breathing detection algorithms leading to posture assessment work.
• The sensor has been tested to determine bed occupancy within long term patient monitoring.
• Work proposed a subject dependent algorithm capable of automatically detecting when and where pressure points have been relieved from underneath a supine subject, without any user inputs or assumptions.
• The work proposed an algorithm for the automated assessment of mobility in bedridden patients and was able to distinguish between stable and unstable sit-to-stand transfers using pressure sensors.
• Additional work has been conducted to monitor motion in palliative care.
• Also the centre of pressure feature was proposed to analyze bed exits and distinguish stable versus unstable transfers.

Other applications

• Strain gauge and load cell sensors have been used to measure the forces applied to a push handle for a motorized assist system.
• Force sensitive resistors have been applied to develop a novel sensor to assess normal and shear forces applied to skin.
• Force sensors have been applied to grab handles to assess where handle is held and the forces applied by the user.

Other results

• The work has also proposed an adaptive information content management algorithm for robust real-time streaming of the data.