Smart vest for respiratory rate monitoring of COPD patients based on non-contact capacitive sensing

In this paper, a first approach to the design of a portable device for non-contact monitoring of respiratory rate by capacitive sensing is presented. The sensing system is integrated into a smart vest for an untethered, low-cost and comfortable breathing monitoring of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) patients during the rest period between respiratory rehabilitation exercises at home. To provide an extensible solution to the remote monitoring using this sensor and other devices, the design and preliminary development of an e-Health platform based on the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) paradigm is also presented. In order to validate the proposed solution, two quasi-experimental studies have been developed, comparing the estimations with respect to the golden standard. In a first study with healthy subjects, the mean value of the respiratory rate error, the standard deviation of the error and the correlation coefficient were 0.01 breaths per minute (bpm), 0.97 bpm and 0.995 (p < 0.00001), respectively. In a second study with COPD patients, the values were -0.14 bpm, 0.28 bpm and 0.9988 (p < 0.0000001), respectively. The results for the rest period show the technical and functional feasibility of the prototype and serve as a preliminary validation of the device for respiratory rate monitoring of patients with COPD.Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación PI15/00306Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación DTS15/00195Junta de Andalucía PI-0010-2013Junta de Andalucía PI-0041-2014Junta de Andalucía PIN-0394-201

Evaluating the more suitable ISM frequency band for iot-based smart grids: a quantitative study of 915 MHz vs. 2400 MHz

IoT has begun to be employed pervasively in industrial environments and critical infrastructures thanks to its positive impact on performance and efficiency. Among these environments, the Smart Grid (SG) excels as the perfect host for this technology, mainly due to its potential to become the motor of the rest of electrically-dependent infrastructures. To make this SG-oriented IoT cost-effective, most deployments employ unlicensed ISM bands, specifically the 2400 MHz one, due to its extended communication bandwidth in comparison with lower bands. This band has been extensively used for years by Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) and Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANET), from which the IoT technologically inherits. However, this work questions and evaluates the suitability of such a "default" communication band in SG environments, compared with the 915 MHz ISM band. A comprehensive quantitative comparison of these bands has been accomplished in terms of: power consumption, average network delay, and packet reception rate. To allow such a study, a dual-band propagation model specifically designed for the SG has been derived, tested, and incorporated into the well-known TOSSIM simulator. Simulation results reveal that only in the absence of other 2400 MHz interfering devices (such as WiFi or Bluetooth) or in small networks, is the 2400 MHz band the best option. In any other case, SG-oriented IoT quantitatively perform better if operating in the 915 MHz band.This research was supported by the MINECO/FEDER project grants TEC2013-47016-C2-2-R (COINS) and TEC2016-76465-C2-1-R (AIM). The authors would like to thank Juan Salvador Perez Madrid nd Domingo Meca (part of the Iberdrola staff) for the support provided during the realization of this work. Ruben M. Sandoval also thanks the Spanish MICINN for an FPU (REF FPU14/03424) pre-doctoral fellowship

Integration of Hybrid Passive Optical Networks (PON) with Radio over Fiber (RoF)

A cost effective, robust, and high capacity access network necessitated to meet the mounting customer demands for bandwidth-desirous services. A remarkable evolution of access networks is observed both in wired and wireless, predominantly driven by ever-changing bandwidth requirements. A wireless connection releases the end user from the restrictions of a physical link to a network that results in mobility, flexibleness, and ease of use. Whereas, optical networks offer immense amount of bandwidth that appease the most bandwidth voracious customers compared to bandwidth limited wireless networks. The integration of wired and wireless domains in the access landscape that presents a technical analysis of optical architectures suitable to support radio over fiber (RoF) is the objective of this chapter. Investigate the main trends that drive the merger of fiber and wireless technologies in access networks. Moreover, study the primary terms and the particular transmission features of integrated fiber-radio links to form a well-defined classification of hybrid systems and techniques. This work also recognizes the major problems for realization of RoF systems and examines the limitation, advantages, and diversity of integrated RoF-PON technology

Telecommunication Systems

This book is based on both industrial and academic research efforts in which a number of recent advancements and rare insights into telecommunication systems are well presented. The volume is organized into four parts: "Telecommunication Protocol, Optimization, and Security Frameworks", "Next-Generation Optical Access Technologies", "Convergence of Wireless-Optical Networks" and "Advanced Relay and Antenna Systems for Smart Networks." Chapters within these parts are self-contained and cross-referenced to facilitate further study

Communication Technologies for Smart Grid: A Comprehensive Survey

With the ongoing trends in the energy sector such as vehicular electrification and renewable energy, smart grid is clearly playing a more and more important role in the electric power system industry. One essential feature of the smart grid is the information flow over the high-speed, reliable and secure data communication network in order to manage the complex power systems effectively and intelligently. Smart grids utilize bidirectional communication to function where traditional power grids mainly only use one-way communication. The communication requirements and suitable technique differ depending on the specific environment and scenario. In this paper, we provide a comprehensive and up-to-date survey on the communication technologies used in the smart grid, including the communication requirements, physical layer technologies, network architectures, and research challenges. This survey aims to help the readers identify the potential research problems in the continued research on the topic of smart grid communications

Enabling Optical Wired and Wireless Technologies for 5G and Beyond Networks

The emerging fifth-generation mobile communications are envisaged to support massive number of deployment scenarios based on the respective use case requirements. The requirements can be efficiently attended with ultradense small-cell cloud radio access network (C-RAN) approach. However, the C-RAN architecture imposes stringent requirements on the transport networks. This book chapter presents high-capacity and low-latency optical wired and wireless networking solutions that are capable of attending to the network demands. Meanwhile, with optical communication evolutions, there has been advent of enhanced photonic integrated circuits (PICs). The PICs are capable of offering advantages such as low-power consumption, high-mechanical stability, low footprint, small dimension, enhanced functionalities, and ease of complex system architectures. Consequently, we exploit the PICs capabilities in designing and developing the physical layer architecture of the second standard of the next-generation passive optical network (NG-PON2) system. Apart from being capable of alleviating the associated losses of the transceiver, the proposed architectures aid in increasing the system power budget. Moreover, its implementation can significantly help in reducing the optical-electrical-optical conversions issue and the required number of optical connections, which are part of the main problems being faced in the miniaturization of network elements. Additionally, we present simulation results for the model validation

Solid-State Transformer for Energy Efficiency Enhancement

The rapid evolution of power electronic solutions in all around the globe brings a common problem, which is the adoption of nonlinear loads. This fact carries out a strong impact over the quality of power systems and consequently on energy efficiency, since nonlinear loads act as sources of harmonic currents that flow to other loads or even sources, causing non-optimal performance in their operation. Nowadays, conventional transformers are limited to just manage (increase or decrease) voltage level, but they are not able to deal with power quality events, such as harmonics, sag, swell, among others. Hence, there is a need to incorporate a versatile smart device to deal with the challenges previously described for a smart grid environment. This chapter introduces a solid-state transformer (SST) with topology of multilevel cascade H bridge converter as a solution. SST is an emerging technology that has the advantages of low volume, low weight, fault isolation, and other management features. Within its fundamental operation, this chapter presents a detailed description of a SST system comprising communication and control, highlighting their main advantages in comparison with conventional transformer such as mitigation of waveform harmonic distortion, allowance of integration of distributed generation, and bi-directional power flow

Wireless Neurosensor for Full-Spectrum Electrophysiology Recordings during Free Behavior

SummaryBrain recordings in large animal models and humans typically rely on a tethered connection, which has restricted the spectrum of accessible experimental and clinical applications. To overcome this limitation, we have engineered a compact, lightweight, high data rate wireless neurosensor capable of recording the full spectrum of electrophysiological signals from the cortex of mobile subjects. The wireless communication system exploits a spatially distributed network of synchronized receivers that is scalable to hundreds of channels and vast environments. To demonstrate the versatility of our wireless neurosensor, we monitored cortical neuron populations in freely behaving nonhuman primates during natural locomotion and sleep-wake transitions in ecologically equivalent settings. The interface is electrically safe and compatible with the majority of existing neural probes, which may support previously inaccessible experimental and clinical research

Remote Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Through the Internet and IEEE 802.11

This dissertation focuses on real-time control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) through TCP/IP/IEEE 802.11. Using the MAVLink protocol - an open-source protocol for micro air vehicles - a solution that allows the exchange, in real-time, of control messages between a UAV and a remote Control Station was implemented. In order to allow the UAV control by a remote user, the vehicle streams a real-time video feed captured by a video-camera on board. The main challenge of this dissertation is related about the designing and implementation of a fast handover solution that allows an uninterruptible communication