Wearable sensors bring new benefits to continuous medical monitoring, real time physical activity assessment, baby monitoring and industrial applications

Sensor Review ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 141-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bloss

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to review the recent advancements in the development of wearable sensors which can continuously monitor critical medical, assess athletic activity, watch babies and serve industrial applications. Design/methodology/approach – The paper presents an in-depth review of a number of developments in wearable sensing and monitoring technologies for medical, athletic and industrial applications. Researchers and companies around the world were contacted to discuss their direction and progress in this field of medical condition and industrial monitoring, as well as discussions with medical personnel on the perceived benefits of such technology. Findings – Dramatic progress is being made in continuous monitoring of many important body functions that indicate critical medical conditions that can be life-threatening, contribute to blindness or access activity. In the industrial arena, wearable devices bring remote monitoring to a new level. Practical implications – Doctors will be able to replace one-off tests with continuous monitoring that provides a much better continuous real-time “view” into the patient’s conditions. Wearable monitors will help provide much better medical care in the future. Industrial managers and others will be able to monitor and supervise remotely. Originality/value – An expert insight into advancements in medical condition monitoring that replaces the one-time “finger prick” type testing only performed in the doctor’s office. It is also a look at how wearable monitoring is greatly improved and serving athletics, the industry and parents.

2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiawei Lian ◽  
Junhong He ◽  
Yun Niu ◽  
Tianze Wang

Purpose The current popular image processing technologies based on convolutional neural network have the characteristics of large computation, high storage cost and low accuracy for tiny defect detection, which is contrary to the high real-time and accuracy, limited computing resources and storage required by industrial applications. Therefore, an improved YOLOv4 named as YOLOv4-Defect is proposed aim to solve the above problems. Design/methodology/approach On the one hand, this study performs multi-dimensional compression processing on the feature extraction network of YOLOv4 to simplify the model and improve the feature extraction ability of the model through knowledge distillation. On the other hand, a prediction scale with more detailed receptive field is added to optimize the model structure, which can improve the detection performance for tiny defects. Findings The effectiveness of the method is verified by public data sets NEU-CLS and DAGM 2007, and the steel ingot data set collected in the actual industrial field. The experimental results demonstrated that the proposed YOLOv4-Defect method can greatly improve the recognition efficiency and accuracy and reduce the size and computation consumption of the model. Originality/value This paper proposed an improved YOLOv4 named as YOLOv4-Defect for the detection of surface defect, which is conducive to application in various industrial scenarios with limited storage and computing resources, and meets the requirements of high real-time and precision.


2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Saquib Rouf ◽  
Ankush Raina ◽  
Mir Irfan Ul Haq ◽  
Nida Naveed

Purpose The involvement of wear, friction and lubrication in engineering systems and industrial applications makes it imperative to study the various aspects of tribology in relation with advanced technologies and concepts. The concept of Industry 4.0 and its implementation further faces a lot of barriers, particularly in developing economies. Real-time and reliable data is an important enabler for the implementation of the concept of Industry 4.0. For availability of reliable and real-time data about various tribological systems is crucial in applying the various concepts of Industry 4.0. This paper aims to attempt to highlight the role of sensors related to friction, wear and lubrication in implementing Industry 4.0 in various tribology-related industries and equipment. Design/methodology/approach A through literature review has been done to study the interrelationships between the availability of tribology-related data and implementation of Industry 4.0 are also discussed. Relevant and recent research papers from prominent databases have been included. A detailed overview about the various types of sensors used in generating tribological data is also presented. Some studies related to the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are also included in the paper. A discussion on fault diagnosis and cyber physical systems in connection with tribology has also been included. Findings Industry 4.0 and tribology are interconnected through various means and the various pillars of Industry 4.0 such as big data, AI can effectively be implemented in various tribological systems. Data is an important parameter in the effective application of concepts of Industry 4.0 in the tribological environment. Sensors have a vital role to play in the implementation of Industry 4.0 in tribological systems. Determining the machine health, carrying out maintenance in off-shore and remote mechanical systems is possible by applying online-real-time data acquisition. Originality/value The paper tries to relate the pillars of Industry 4.0 with various aspects of tribology. The paper is a first of its kind wherein the interdisciplinary field of tribology has been linked with Industry 4.0. The paper also highlights the role of sensors in generating tribological data related to the critical parameters, such as wear rate, coefficient of friction, surface roughness which is critical in implementing the various pillars of Industry 4.0.


2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (6) ◽  
pp. 2017-2034
Author(s):  
Yu-Ting L.V. ◽  
Yong Li ◽  
De-Xing Yang ◽  
Zhenhua Bai ◽  
Jinlong Li ◽  
...  

Purpose Continuous annealing (CA) units usually lack a physical shapemeter; consequently, real-time display and closed-loop control of the strip shape are impossible to achieve. Design/methodology/approach A shape model for the CA process is established in this study. Specifically, a virtual shapemeter and closed-loop control system based on the advanced parameter acquisition system and information transmission of CA units are developed in C++ programming language. This system realises real-time dynamic shape display, closed-loop control and shape prediction by collecting raw data of steel coils and parameters during CA. Findings Field test results show that the shape predicted by the virtual shapemeter coincides with the measured shape by over 90 per cent, which fully meets the precision requirement of industrial applications. Originality/value Moreover, shape quality is effectively improved without increasing hardware investments.


2020 ◽  
Vol 40 (9) ◽  
pp. 1421-1447 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessandro Stefanini ◽  
Davide Aloini ◽  
Peter Gloor

PurposeThis study investigates the relationships between team dynamics and performance in healthcare operations. Specifically, it explores, through wearable sensors, how team coordination mechanisms can influence the likelihood of surgical glitches during routine surgery.Design/methodology/approachBreast surgeries of a large Italian university hospital were monitored using Sociometric Badges – wearable sensors developed at MIT Media Lab – for collecting objective and systematic measures of individual and group behaviors in real time. Data retrieved were used to analyze team coordination mechanisms, as it evolved in the real settings, and finally to test the research hypotheses.FindingsFindings highlight that a relevant portion of glitches in routine surgery is caused by improper team coordination practices. In particular, results show that the likelihood of glitches decreases when practitioners adopt implicit coordination mechanisms rather than explicit ones. In addition, team cohesion appears to be positively related with the surgical performance.Originality/valueFor the first time, direct, objective and real time measurements of team behaviors have enabled an in-depth evaluation of the team coordination mechanisms in surgery and the impact on surgical glitches. From a methodological perspective, this research also represents an early attempt to investigate coordination behaviors in dynamic and complex operating environments using wearable sensor tools.


Sensor Review ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 36 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-119 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Bloss

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to review the dramatic entry of embedded medical sensors into the medical monitoring environment. It also examines the current range of applications that have been addressed, trends for additional applications and factors driving this movement. Design/methodology/approach This paper is a review of published information and papers on research as well as contact and discussions with researchers in this field at universities, manufacturers and research centers. Findings Microelectronics and electrochemical technologies have been a major factor in this development along with technology advancements to transmit energy and signals to and from miniature electronic devices, thus eliminating the need for stored energy and wires for transmitting information. Sensors are addressing medical issues in the heart, the brain, cancer treatment and prosthetic control. The move to implanted sensors follows development of other implanted medical devices as well as wearable sensors. Originality/value Readers may be very excited to learn of the many new tasks that embedded medical sensors can address and the many unique benefits that are provided to the patient and the medical staff caring for the patient.


Author(s):  
Yong Liu ◽  
Dingbing Shi ◽  
Steven Baard Skaar

Purpose – Vision-based positioning without camera calibration, using uncalibrated industrial robots, is a challenging research problem. To address the issue, an uncalibrated industrial robot real-time positioning system has been developed in this paper. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – The software and hardware of this system as well as the methodology are described. Direct and inverse kinematics equations that map joint space into “camera space” are developed. The camera-space manipulation (CSM) algorithm has been employed and improved with varying weights on camera samples of the robot end effector, and the improved CSM is named VW-CSM. The experiments of robot positioning have been conducted using the traditional CSM algorithm and the varying-weight CSM (VW-CSM) algorithm, respectively, both without separate camera calibration. The impact on the accuracy and real-time performance of the system caused by different weights has been examined and discussed. Findings – The experimental results show that the accuracy and real-time performance of the system with the VW-CSM algorithm is better than the one with using the original CSM algorithm, and the impact on the accuracy and real-time performance of the system caused by different weights has been revealed. Originality/value – The accuracy and real-time performance of the system with the VW-CSM algorithm is verified. These results prove that the developed system using the VW-CSM algorithm can satisfy the requirements of most industrial applications and can be widely used in the field of industrial robots.


2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 507-536 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea G Capodaglio ◽  
Arianna Callegari ◽  
Daniele Molognoni

Purpose – Advancements in real-time water monitoring technologies permit rapid detection of water quality, and threats from waste loads. Water Framework Directive mandating the establishment of Member States’ water resources monitoring, presence of hazardous contaminants in effluents, and perception of vulnerability of water distribution system to attacks, have spurred technical and economic interests. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – As alternative to traditional analyzers, chemosensors, operate according to physical principles, without sample collection (online), and are capable of supplying parameter values continuously and in real-time. Their low selectivity and stability issues have been overcome by technological developments. This review paper contains a comprehensive survey of existing and expected online monitoring technologies for measurement/detection of pollutants in water. Findings – The state-of-the-art in online water monitoring is presented. Application examples are reported. Monitoring costs will become a lesser part of a water utility budget due to the fact that automation and technological simplification will abate human cost factors, and reduce the complexity of laboratory procedures. Originality/value – An overview of applicable instrumentation, and forthcoming developments, is given. Technological development in this field is very rapid, and astonishing advances are anticipated in several areas (fingerprinting, optochemical sensors, biosensors, molecular techniques). Online monitoring is becoming an ever-important tool not only for compliance control or plant management purposes, but also as a useful approach to pollution control and reduction, minimizing the environmental impact of discharges.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 1104
Author(s):  
Shin-Yan Chiou ◽  
Kun-Ju Lin ◽  
Ya-Xin Dong

Positron emission tomography (PET) is one of the commonly used scanning techniques. Medical staff manually calculate the estimated scan time for each PET device. However, the number of PET scanning devices is small, the number of patients is large, and there are many changes including rescanning requirements, which makes it very error-prone, puts pressure on staff, and causes trouble for patients and their families. Although previous studies proposed algorithms for specific inspections, there is currently no research on improving the PET process. This paper proposes a real-time automatic scheduling and control system for PET patients with wearable sensors. The system can automatically schedule, estimate and instantly update the time of various tasks, and automatically allocate beds and announce schedule information in real time. We implemented this system, collected time data of 200 actual patients, and put these data into the implementation program for simulation and comparison. The average time difference between manual and automatic scheduling was 7.32 min, and it could reduce the average examination time of 82% of patients by 6.14 ± 4.61 min. This convinces us the system is correct and can improve time efficiency, while avoiding human error and staff pressure, and avoiding trouble for patients and their families.


Author(s):  
Yaqoub Yusuf ◽  
Jodi Boutte’ ◽  
Asante’ Lloyd ◽  
Emma Fortune ◽  
Renaldo C. Blocker

A workplace that is a conduit for positive emotions can be important to employees retention and can contribute optimal levels of productivity. Validated tools for examining emotions are primarily subjective and retrospective in nature. Recent advances in technology have led to more novel and passive ways of measuring emotions. Wearable sensors, such as electroencephalogram (EEG), are being explored to assess cognitive and physical burdens objectively and in real-time. Therefore, there exists a need to investigate and validate the use of EEG to examine emotions objectively and in real-time. In this paper, we conducted a scoping review of EEG to measure positive emotions and/or indicators of joy in the workplace. Our review results in 22 articles that employ EEG to study joy in occupational settings. Three major themes identified in the analysis include (1) EEG for symptoms detection and outcomes, (2) Populations studied using EEG, and (3) EEG electrode systems.


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