A software assistant for user-centric calibration of a wireless body sensor

Abstract

Body sensors have a promising contribution to health promotion in many areas of daily life (telemedicine, corporate health care or recreational sports). However, the valid measurement of vital signs and kinematic data strongly depends on the signals' quality and the users' compliance (proper usage). Although, there is a lot of research work concerning accuracy and calibration of wireless body sensors the human user is typically not involved. Thus, in this work, we present a software assistant (wizard) that guides users during the process of attaching and setting up a wireless body sensor. Furthermore, insights of the implemented software as well as the utilized quality measures and calibration steps are given (ECG, respiration sensor and accelerometer). With the proposed software assistant, the users are instructed to correctly attach the body sensor and calibrate or verify the operability of the various sensor elements. The primary goal is to encourage compliance and the users' sense of control. In this way, we want to reduce faulty operation and ensure optimal signal quality.