Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2015 Feb 5;15(2):3721-49.
doi: 10.3390/s150203721.

Wearable sensor systems for infants

Zhihua Zhu  1 , Tao Liu  2   3 , Guangyi Li  4 , Tong Li  5 , Yoshio Inoue  6
Affiliations
Review

Wearable sensor systems for infants

Zhihua Zhu et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Continuous health status monitoring of infants is achieved with the development and fusion of wearable sensing technologies, wireless communication techniques and a low energy-consumption microprocessor with high performance data processing algorithms. As a clinical tool applied in the constant monitoring of physiological parameters of infants, wearable sensor systems for infants are able to transmit the information obtained inside an infant's body to clinicians or parents. Moreover, such systems with integrated sensors can perceive external threats such as falling or drowning and warn parents immediately. Firstly, the paper reviews some available wearable sensor systems for infants; secondly, we introduce the different modules of the framework in the sensor systems; lastly, the methods and techniques applied in the wearable sensor systems are summarized and discussed. The latest research and achievements have been highlighted in this paper and the meaningful applications in healthcare and behavior analysis are also presented. Moreover, we give a lucid perspective of the development of wearable sensor systems for infants in the future.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Framework of wearable sensor systems for infants.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Textile electrodes for ECG measurement [30]. Copyright © 2010 Multi Science Publishing.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
Left: demo set-up with belt prototype, worn by a 12-week-old baby; Right: baby suit prototype, worn by a 21-week-old baby [31]. Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V.
Figure 4.
Figure 4.
ECG measured with textile electrodes (in the same setup of the belt prototype in Figure 3) [31]. Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V.
Figure 5.
Figure 5.
ECG measured with conventional electrodes (in the same setup of the belt prototype in Figure 3) [31]. Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V.
Figure 6.
Figure 6.
The setup of the temperature monitoring demonstration [10]. Copyright © 2010 Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
Figure 7.
Figure 7.
User testing on an infant in the NICU [10]. Copyright © 2010 Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
Figure 8.
Figure 8.
The adjustable sensor mask with thermo-sensors [36]. Copyright © 2015 World Scientific Publishing Co.
Figure 9.
Figure 9.
The prototype belt on a baby doll (left); and the isolation of the sensor in the belt (right) [10]. Copyright © 2010 Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
Figure 10.
Figure 10.
The conductive textile wires (left) and the connection of the sensor and the conductive wires (right) [10]. Copyright © 2010 Association for Computing Machinery, Inc.
Figure 11.
Figure 11.
SleepSafe infant monitor [23]. Copyright © 2007 IEEE.
Figure 12.
Figure 12.
A crib with CO2 sensors mounted around the baby bed (left) [13] Copyright © 2007 IEEE; and a drowning prevention system based on a wireless accelerometer (right) [24]. Copyright © 2007 IEEE.
Figure 13.
Figure 13.
Baby glove swaddle (left) and the basic setup (right) [23]. Copyright © 2007 IEEE.
Figure 14.
Figure 14.
The BBA bootee (left) [9] Copyright © 2007 IEEE and the sensory baby vest (right) [12] Copyright © 2006 IEEE.
Figure 15.
Figure 15.
Baby suit prototype for ECG measurement. (Left) inside showing the Textrodes; (right) outside [31]. Copyright © 2005 Elsevier B.V.
Figure 16.
Figure 16.
Four textile electrodes with different structures and materials [29]. Copyright © 2007 IEEE.
Figure 17.
Figure 17.
A prototype of the smart jacket (left) and a baby mannequin wearing the smart jacket inside the incubator (right) [11]. Copyright © 2009 IEEE
Figure 18.
Figure 18.
The Powerboy prototype (left) and the Powerboy near a baby mannequin (right) [40]. Copyright © 2009 IOS Press.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Chan M., Estève D., Fourniols J.Y., Escriba C., Campo E. Smart wearable systems: Current status and future challenges. Artif. Intell. Med. 2012;56:137–156. - PubMed
    1. Orengo G., Lagati A., Saggio G. Modeling wearable bend sensor behavior for human motion capture. IEEE Sens. J. 2014;14:2307–2316.
    1. Guinovart T., Valdes-Ramirez G., Windmiller J.R., Andrade F.J., Wang J. Bandage-based wearable potentiometric sensor for monitoring wound pH. Electroanalysis. 2014;26:1345–1353.
    1. Zhao P., Deng N., Li X.W., Ren C.C., Wang Z.Y. Development of highly-sensitive and ultra-thin silicon stress sensorchips forwearable biomedical applications. Sens. Actuators A Phys. 2014;216:158–166.
    1. Salman S., Lee L.Z., Volakis J.L. A Wearable Wrap-Around Sensor for Monitoring Deep Tissue Electric Properties. IEEE Sens. J. 2014;14:2447–2451.

Publication types