Nerites - Underwater Monitoring System of Diver's Respiration and Regulator Performance using Intermediate Pressure Signal

Abstract

This study is about a system for monitoring the breathing cycles of divers and the functioning of regulators underwater. It warns the diver and other surrounding divers in case of long time cessation of respiration or if the regulator’s intermediate pressure is out of predefined limits, enabling immediate intervention to regulator and breathing problems. The system is equipped with two pressure sensors and a microprocessor. It can be quickly mounted on the scuba diver’s equipment to sense distortions in the intermediate pressure and to sense the depth while underwater. Generally all data, including dive profile, are logged and transferable to PC for post-dive analysis. The low and high level alarms enable immediate intervention in case of breathing or regulator problems. Major benefits of the system are rapid detection of respiration and regulator problems and ease of locating an unconscious or deceased diver. Additionally, this system aims at contributing to decompression illness research and at helping regulator manufacturers with the data it will collect while underwater. While this study focuses on the hardware development of the system, breathing detection algorithms are currently being studied and optimized off-line using data collected by the system.