Design of ultra-low-power smart wearable systems

Abstract

Latest progress in microelectronics have enabled a new generation of low cost, low power, miniaturized, yet, smart sensor nodes. This new generation of wearable sensor nodes promise to deploy automated complex bio-signals analysis. In this paper, we present INYU, a wearable sensor device for physical and emotional health monitoring. The device obtains key vital signs of the user, namely Electrocardiogram (ECG), respiration and skin conductance continuously. Using this information, INYU can deliver a novel real-time algorithm for on-line heart-beat classification and correction that relies on a probabilistic model to determine whether a heartbeat is likely to happen under certain timing conditions. Thus, using this algorithm INYU can quickly decide if a beat is occurring at an expected time or if there is a problem in the series (e.g., a skipped, an extra or a misplaced beat). This new algorithm has been integrated in the processing pipeline of automated Heart-Rate Variability (HRV) analysis, both for time-domain (RMSSD, SDNN) and frequencydomain (LF/HF) algorithms.