Title :
A plasma modified fiber sensor for breath rate monitoring
Author :
Vallan, Alberto ; Carullo, A. ; Casalicchio, M.L. ; Penna, A. ; Perrone, G. ; De Vietro, N. ; Milella, Annalisa ; Fracassi, F.
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electron. & Telecommun., Politec. di Torino, Turin, Italy
Abstract :
The paper describes a new sensor for breath activity monitoring that, being based on optical fibers, is specifically conceived for applications where the intrinsic safety and the immunity to strong electromagnetic fields are mandatory, such as during MRI. The sensor is based on a plastic optical fiber (POF) in contact with the patient chest and properly modified to be extremely sensitive to deformations induced by normal breathing activity. The paper presents the sensor development procedure, the fiber modification process based on a cold plasma facility, and experimental results carried out during rest and sleeping conditions.
Keywords :
biomedical measurement; fibre optic sensors; patient monitoring; pneumodynamics; MRI; POF; breath activity monitoring; breath rate monitoring; cold plasma facility; electromagnetic fields; fiber modification process; normal breathing activity; plasma modified fiber sensor; plastic optical fiber; sensor development procedure; Monitoring; Optical fiber amplifiers; Optical fiber networks; Optical fiber sensors; breath monitoring; fiber sensors; plasma etching; plastic optical fibers;
Conference_Titel :
Medical Measurements and Applications (MeMeA), 2014 IEEE International Symposium on
Conference_Location :
Lisboa
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4799-2920-7
DOI :
10.1109/MeMeA.2014.6860129
