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
. 2024 Jul 15;24(14):4589.
doi: 10.3390/s24144589.

A Framework for Selecting and Assessing Wearable Sensors Deployed in Safety Critical Scenarios

Robert Houghton  1 , Alberto Martinetti  2 , Arnab Majumdar  1
Affiliations
Review

A Framework for Selecting and Assessing Wearable Sensors Deployed in Safety Critical Scenarios

Robert Houghton et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

Wearable sensors for psychophysiological monitoring are becoming increasingly mainstream in safety critical contexts. They offer a novel solution to capturing sub-optimal states and can help identify when workers in safety critical environments are suffering from states such as fatigue and stress. However, sensors can differ widely in their application, design, usability, and measurement and there is a lack of guidance on what should be prioritized or considered when selecting a sensor. The paper aims to highlight which concepts are important when creating or selecting a device regarding the optimization of both measurement and usability. Additionally, the paper discusses how design choices can enhance both the usability and measurement capabilities of wearable sensors. The hopes are that this paper will provide researchers and practitioners in human factors and related fields with a framework to help guide them in building and selecting wearable sensors that are well suited for deployment in safety critical contexts.

Keywords: design; psychophysiology; safety critical; usability; wearable sensors.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of how papers were selected and integrated into the review.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Example of a spider chart showing the difference in scores between an ECG and PPG devices across all parameters.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Comprehensive framework of principles which should be used to develop and guide evaluation of wearable devices which monitor human psychophysiology. Design is centered, as it represents the core tenet which maximizes both the “pillars of measurement, and usability”. The arrows indicate that sensors may be iterated through some or all of these parameters before a final version is deemed suitable for its context. Usability and measurement may interact with one another through iteration, with different priorities being focused upon, dependent on user needs and user feedback.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Palmer B., Gershbein D. Wearables for Good: Use Case Handbook. UNICEF; New York City, NY, USA: 2017.
    1. Wu Y., Miwa T., Uchida M. Using physiological signals to measure operator’s mental workload in shipping—An engine room simulator study. J. Mar. Eng. Technol. 2017;16:61–69. doi: 10.1080/20464177.2016.1275496. - DOI
    1. Fujita K., Kinoshita F., Touyama H. Detection of cognitive decline due to mental fatigue using electroencephalogram; Proceedings of the 2018 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC); Miyazaki, Japan. 7–10 October 2018; pp. 562–567.
    1. Jebelli H., Choi B., Lee S. Application of wearable biosensors to construction sites. I: Assessing workers’ stress. J. Constr. Eng. Manag. 2019;145:04019079. doi: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001729. - DOI
    1. Tsai C.Y., Cheong H.I., Houghton R., Majumdar A., Liu W.T., Lee K.Y., Wu C.J., Liu Y.S. Dangerous Driving Prediction Model based on Long Short-term Memory Network with Dynamic Weighted Moving Average of Heart-Rate Variability; Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE 7th International Conference on Engineering Technologies and Applied Sciences (ICETAS); Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 18–20 December 2020; pp. 1–7.

LinkOut - more resources