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.