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Wearable Devices and Sensors for Innovative Monitoring Systems in the 4.0 Era

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A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Wearables".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 February 2023) | Viewed by 28170

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Dr. Annarita Tedesco

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Department of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology (DIETI), University of Naples “Federico II”, 80125 Naples, Italy
Interests: aumented reality; AR application in infustrial installations; measurements; security technologies for critical infrastructures
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Leopoldo Angrisani

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Dipartimento di Ingegneria Elettrica e delle Tecnologie dell’Informazione, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, 80125 Naples, Italy
Interests: communication systems and networks test and measurement; measurements for Internet of Things applications; compressive sampling based measurements; measurements for Industry 4.0; measurement uncertainty
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Prof. Dr. Egidio De Benedetto

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Department of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, 80138 Naples, Italy
Interests: dielectric characterization of materials; microwave reflectometry systems for monitoring applications; 4.0-based measurement systems; measurements for augmented reality systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

While people have become familiar with the concept of Industry 4.0, the principles and driving forces of this new paradigm have started leveraging other application contexts, such as healthcare, public administration, and agriculture, to name a few examples. This has led to the adoption of a more comprehensive and general expression, Era 4.0, which perfectly indicates the pervasiveness of this concept.

The 4.0 Era relies on several enabling technologies, such as the Internet of things (IoT), and especially on the acquisition and processing of data gathered from sensors and systems. These sensors must allow monitoring not only the operating environment (i.e., machineries, workflow, digital paper trails , but also the persons who operate in it.

In this regard, one of the major research challenges still remains—the need to facilitate a seamless interaction of the persons/users with the sensory environment and with the IoT infrastructure, possibly without compromising the user’s comfort and activities.

In such a context, wearable sensors and monitoring systems represent the best candidates to facilitate this process and may become the new interface between the “real” and the digital world.

Starting from these considerations, the present Special Issue welcomes research contributions focused on innovative wearable devices and sensing solutions for monitoring systems in the 4.0 Era.

The topic of the proposed special issue encompasses most of the areas that are included in the aims and scope of the Sensors journal, namely:

Physical sensors
Sensor networks
Smart/Intelligent sensors
Sensor devices
Sensor technology and application
Sensing principles
Micro- and nanosensors
Internet of Things
Signal processing, data fusion, and deep learning
In-sensor systems
Sensor interface
Human–computer Interaction
Sensing systems
MEMS/NEMS
Localization and object tracking

Prof. Dr. Leopoldo Angrisani
Dr. Annarita Tedesco
Dr. Egidio De Benedetto
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Sensors is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Era 4.0
industry 4.0
IoT
smart monitoring
smart sensors
wearable user interfaces
wearable monitoring systems
wearable devices
wearable sensors

Published Papers (6 papers)

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Research

10 pages, 1314 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Postsurgical Analysis of Gait, Radiological, and Functional Outcomes in Children with Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip

by Firdaus Aslam, Kamal Jamil, Ohnmar Htwe, Brenda Saria Yuliawiratman, Elango Natarajan, Irraivan Elamvazuthi and Amaramalar Selvi Naicker

Sensors 2023, 23(7), 3386; https://doi.org/10.3390/s23073386 - 23 Mar 2023

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1297

Abstract

Background: Children undergoing DDH correction surgery may experience gait abnormalities following soft tissue releases and bony procedures. The purpose of this study was to compare the residual gait changes, radiological outcomes, and functional outcomes in children who underwent DDH surgery with those in healthy controls. Methods: Inertial motion sensors were used to record the gait of 14 children with DDH and 14 healthy children. Pelvic X-ray was performed to determine the Severin classification and the presence of femoral head osteonecrosis (Bucholz–Odgen classification). For functional evaluation, the Children’s Hospital Oakland Hip Evaluation Scale (CHOHES) was used. Results: There was no difference in spatial parameters between the two groups. In terms of temporal parameters, the DDH-affected limbs had a shorter stance phase (p < 0.001) and a longer swing phase (p < 0.001) than the control group. The kinematic study showed that the affected limb group had smaller hip adduction angle (p = 0.002) and increased internal rotation (p = 0.006) with reduced upward pelvic tilt (p = 0.020). Osteonecrosis was graded II, III, and IV in five, three, and one patients, respectively. Five patients had no AVN changes. The Severin classification was grade I, II, and III for six, three, and five patients, respectively. Most patients had good functional outcomes on the CHOHES, with a mean total score of 96.64 ± 5.719. Multivariate regression analysis revealed that weight, height, and femoral osteotomy were independent predictors for gait, radiological and functional outcome. Conclusion: Despite good functional scores overall, some children had poor radiological outcomes and gait abnormalities. Our results identified the risk factors for poor outcomes, and we recommend specified rehabilitative strategies for long-term management. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wearable Devices and Sensors for Innovative Monitoring Systems in the 4.0 Era)

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12 pages, 1417 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Soft Transducer for Patient’s Vitals Telemonitoring with Deep Learning-Based Personalized Anomaly Detection

by Pasquale Arpaia, Federica Crauso, Egidio De Benedetto, Luigi Duraccio, Giovanni Improta and Francesco Serino

Sensors 2022, 22(2), 536; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22020536 - 11 Jan 2022

Cited by 12 | Viewed by 1730

Abstract

This work addresses the design, development and implementation of a 4.0-based wearable soft transducer for patient-centered vitals telemonitoring. In particular, first, the soft transducer measures hypertension-related vitals (heart rate, oxygen saturation and systolic/diastolic pressure) and sends the data to a remote database (which can be easily consulted both by the patient and the physician). In addition to this, a dedicated deep learning algorithm, based on a Long-Short-Term-Memory Autoencoder, was designed, implemented and tested for providing an alert when the patient’s vitals exceed certain thresholds, which are automatically personalized for the specific patient. Furthermore, a mobile application (EcO2u) was developed to manage the entire data flow and facilitate the data fruition; this application also implements an innovative face-detection algorithm that ensures the identity of the patient. The robustness of the proposed soft transducer was validated experimentally on five individuals, who used the system for 30 days. The experimental results demonstrated an accuracy in anomaly detection greater than 93%, with a true positive rate of more than 94%. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wearable Devices and Sensors for Innovative Monitoring Systems in the 4.0 Era)

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17 pages, 6191 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Validation of Zulu Watch against Polysomnography and Actigraphy for On-Wrist Sleep-Wake Determination and Sleep-Depth Estimation

by Jaime K. Devine, Evan D. Chinoy, Rachel R. Markwald, Lindsay P. Schwartz and Steven R. Hursh

Sensors 2021, 21(1), 76; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21010076 - 25 Dec 2020

Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3942

Abstract

Traditional measures of sleep or commercial wearables may not be ideal for use in operational environments. The Zulu watch is a commercial sleep-tracking device designed to collect longitudinal sleep data in real-world environments. Laboratory testing is the initial step towards validating a device for real-world sleep evaluation; therefore, the Zulu watch was tested against the gold-standard polysomnography (PSG) and actigraphy. Eight healthy, young adult participants wore a Zulu watch and Actiwatch simultaneously over a 3-day laboratory PSG sleep study. The accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of epoch-by-epoch data were tested against PSG and actigraphy. Sleep summary statistics were compared using paired samples t-tests, intraclass correlation coefficients, and Bland–Altman plots. Compared with either PSG or actigraphy, both the accuracy and sensitivity for Zulu watch sleep-wake determination were >90%, while the specificity was low (~26% vs. PSG, ~33% vs. actigraphy). The accuracy for sleep scoring vs. PSG was ~87% for interrupted sleep, ~52% for light sleep, and ~49% for deep sleep. The Zulu watch showed mixed results but performed well in determining total sleep time, sleep efficiency, sleep onset, and final awakening in healthy adults compared with PSG or actigraphy. The next step will be to test the Zulu watch’s ability to evaluate sleep in industrial operations. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wearable Devices and Sensors for Innovative Monitoring Systems in the 4.0 Era)

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16 pages, 10563 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Advanced Assistive Maintenance Based on Augmented Reality and 5G Networking

by Sebastiano Verde, Marco Marcon, Simone Milani and Stefano Tubaro

Sensors 2020, 20(24), 7157; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20247157 - 14 Dec 2020

Cited by 16 | Viewed by 3564

Abstract

Internet of Things (IoT) applications play a relevant role in today’s industry in sharing diagnostic data with off-site service teams, as well as in enabling reliable predictive maintenance systems. Several interventions scenarios, however, require the physical presence of a human operator: Augmented Reality (AR), together with a broad-band connection, represents a major opportunity to integrate diagnostic data with real-time in-situ acquisitions. Diagnostic information can be shared with remote specialists that are able to monitor and guide maintenance operations from a control room as if they were in place. Furthermore, integrating heterogeneous sensors with AR visualization displays could largely improve operators’ safety in complex and dangerous industrial plants. In this paper, we present a complete setup for a remote assistive maintenance intervention based on 5G networking and tested at a Vodafone Base Transceiver Station (BTS) within the Vodafone 5G Program. Technicians’ safety was improved by means of a lightweight AR Head-Mounted Display (HDM) equipped with a thermal camera and a depth sensor to foresee possible collisions with hot surfaces and dangerous objects, by leveraging the processing power of remote computing paired with the low latency of 5G connection. Field testing confirmed that the proposed approach can be a viable solution for egocentric environment understanding and enables an immersive integration of the obtained augmented data within the real scene. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wearable Devices and Sensors for Innovative Monitoring Systems in the 4.0 Era)

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22 pages, 9586 KiB

Open AccessArticle

3D Printed Robot Hand Structure Using Four-Bar Linkage Mechanism for Prosthetic Application

by Mohamad Aizat Abdul Wahit, Siti Anom Ahmad, Mohammad Hamiruce Marhaban, Chikamune Wada and Lila Iznita Izhar

Sensors 2020, 20(15), 4174; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20154174 - 27 Jul 2020

Cited by 17 | Viewed by 11588

Abstract

Trans-radial prosthesis is a wearable device that intends to help amputees under the elbow to replace the function of the missing anatomical segment that resembles an actual human hand. However, there are some challenging aspects faced mainly on the robot hand structural design itself. Improvements are needed as this is closely related to structure efficiency. This paper proposes a robot hand structure with improved features (four-bar linkage mechanism) to overcome the deficiency of using the cable-driven actuated mechanism that leads to less structure durability and inaccurate motion range. Our proposed robot hand structure also took into account the existing design problems such as bulky structure, unindividual actuated finger, incomplete fingers and a lack of finger joints compared to the actual finger in its design. This paper presents the improvements achieved by applying the proposed design such as the use of a four-bar linkage mechanism instead of using the cable-driven mechanism, the size of an average human hand, five-fingers with completed joints where each finger is moved by motor individually, joint protection using a mechanical stopper, detachable finger structure from the palm frame, a structure that has sufficient durability for everyday use and an easy to fabricate structure using 3D printing technology. The four-bar linkage mechanism is the use of the solid linkage that connects the actuator with the structure to allow the structure to move. The durability was investigated using static analysis simulation. The structural details and simulation results were validated through motion capture analysis and load test. The motion analyses towards the 3D printed robot structure show 70–98% similar motion range capability to the designed structure in the CAD software, and it can withstand up to 1.6 kg load in the simulation and the real test. The improved robot hand structure with optimum durability for prosthetic uses was successfully developed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wearable Devices and Sensors for Innovative Monitoring Systems in the 4.0 Era)

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15 pages, 16733 KiB

Open AccessEditor’s ChoiceArticle

Feasibility of a Wearable Reflectometric System for Sensing Skin Hydration

by Raissa Schiavoni, Giuseppina Monti, Emanuele Piuzzi, Luciano Tarricone, Annarita Tedesco, Egidio De Benedetto and Andrea Cataldo

Sensors 2020, 20(10), 2833; https://doi.org/10.3390/s20102833 - 16 May 2020

Cited by 35 | Viewed by 4737

Abstract

One of the major goals of Health 4.0 is to offer personalized care to patients, also through real-time, remote monitoring of their biomedical parameters. In this regard, wearable monitoring systems are crucial to deliver continuous appropriate care. For some biomedical parameters, there are a number of well established systems that offer adequate solutions for real-time, continuous patient monitoring. On the other hand, monitoring skin hydration still remains a challenging task. The continuous monitoring of this physiological parameter is extremely important in several contexts, for example for athletes, sick people, workers in hostile environments or for the elderly. State-of-the-art systems, however, exhibit some limitations, especially related with the possibility of continuous, real-time monitoring. Starting from these considerations, in this work, the feasibility of an innovative time-domain reflectometry (TDR)-based wearable, skin hydration sensing system for real-time, continuous monitoring of skin hydration level was investigated. The applicability of the proposed system was demonstrated, first, through experimental tests on reference substances, then, directly on human skin. The obtained results demonstrate the TDR technique and the proposed system holds unexplored potential for the aforementioned purposes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Wearable Devices and Sensors for Innovative Monitoring Systems in the 4.0 Era)

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