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Clinical Trial
. 2014 Apr 22;14(4):7120-41.
doi: 10.3390/s140407120.

Wearable biomedical measurement systems for assessment of mental stress of combatants in real time

Fernando Seoane  1 , Inmaculada Mohino-Herranz  2 , Javier Ferreira  3 , Lorena Alvarez  4 , Ruben Buendia  5 , David Ayllón  6 , Cosme Llerena  7 , Roberto Gil-Pita  8
Affiliations
Clinical Trial

Wearable biomedical measurement systems for assessment of mental stress of combatants in real time

Fernando Seoane et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

The Spanish Ministry of Defense, through its Future Combatant program, has sought to develop technology aids with the aim of extending combatants' operational capabilities. Within this framework the ATREC project funded by the "Coincidente" program aims at analyzing diverse biometrics to assess by real time monitoring the stress levels of combatants. This project combines multidisciplinary disciplines and fields, including wearable instrumentation, textile technology, signal processing, pattern recognition and psychological analysis of the obtained information. In this work the ATREC project is described, including the different execution phases, the wearable biomedical measurement systems, the experimental setup, the biomedical signal analysis and speech processing performed. The preliminary results obtained from the data analysis collected during the first phase of the project are presented, indicating the good classification performance exhibited when using features obtained from electrocardiographic recordings and electrical bioimpedance measurements from the thorax. These results suggest that cardiac and respiration activity offer better biomarkers for assessment of stress than speech, galvanic skin response or skin temperature when recorded with wearable biomedical measurement systems.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
System overview of the full system aimed to be implemented during the ATREC project integrating sensorized garments, wireless communication and wearable computing for real-time assessment.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
GSR device with a drawing of the connection with the sensorized glove.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Drawing of the ECG/ICG measuring device indicating the connection with the biopotential and the TEB textrodes placed on the torso for performing ECG and respiration measurements.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
Drawing of the sensorized glove. (a) Upper view of the glove. (b) Cross-sectional view of the glove at the proximal phalanx in a perpendicular plane to the palm. (c) Palm view.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Sensorized glove connected to the measuring unit fasten to the wristband.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
Drawing of the confectioned sensorized upper arm strap. (a) Inside view, showing the sensors. (b) Outside side, where the sensing device is placed and connected. (c) Detail of the textile-electronic interconnection achieved by using conductive fabrics, yarn and sewing them through a ring-shaped end.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
(a) Confectioned upper arm strap. (b) Measuring device and strap worn on the upper arm.
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
(a) Chest straps system confectioned for placement of ECG and TEB electrodes. (b) Detail of the elastic perforated band. (c) Fixation between straps through chef jacket button.
Figure 9.
Figure 9.
(a) Schematic of the repositionable textrode. Notice that when folded the electrode is clamped using its male and female press-studs, thus creating an electrical and mechanical connection. (b) Confectioned repositionable textrode.
Figure 10.
Figure 10.
Galvanic skin response measurements. (a) Glove. (b) Upper arm strap.
Figure 11.
Figure 11.
(a) ECG recording. (b) Transthoracic Electrical Bioimpedance recording.
Figure 12.
Figure 12.
90 s speech recording obtained with the BRVAR909 smartphone for one of the subjects of the experiments.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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