Design and Implementation of an Underwater Telemetric Glucose Monitoring System for Scuba Divers

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Design and Validation of a Breathing Detection System for Scuba Divers

Drowning is the major cause of death in self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA) diving. This study proposes an embedded system with a live and light-weight algorithm which detects the breathing of divers through the analysis of the intermediate pressure (IP) signal of the SCUBA regulator. A system composed mainly of two pressure sensors and a low-power microcontroller was designed and programmed to record the pressure sensors signals and provide alarms in absence of breathing. An algorithm was developed to analyze the signals and identify inhalation events of the diver. A waterproof case was built to accommodate the system and was tested up to a depth of 25 m in a pressure chamber. To validate the system in the real environment, a series of dives with two different types of workload requiring different ranges of breathing frequencies were planned. Eight professional SCUBA divers volunteered to dive with the system to collect their IP data in order to participate to validation trials. The subjects underwent two dives, each of 52 min on average and a maximum depth of 7 m. The algorithm was optimized for the collected dataset and proved a sensitivity of inhalation detection of 97.5% and a total number of 275 false positives (FP) over a total recording time of 13.9 h. The detection algorithm presents a maximum delay of 5.2 s and requires only 800 bytes of random-access memory (RAM). The results were compared against the analysis of video records of the dives by two blinded observers and proved a sensitivity of 97.6% on the data set. The design includes a buzzer to provide audible alarms to accompanying dive buddies which will be triggered in case of degraded health conditions such as near drowning (absence of breathing), hyperventilation (breathing frequency too high) and skip-breathing (breathing frequency too low) measured by the improper breathing frequency. The system also measures the IP at rest before the dive and indicates with flashing light-emitting diodes and audible alarm the regulator malfunctions due to high or low IP that may cause fatal accidents during the dive by preventing natural breathing. It is also planned to relay the alarm signal to underwater and surface rescue authorities by means of acoustic communication

Nerites - Underwater Monitoring System of Diver’s Respiration and Regulator Performance using Intermediate Pressure Signal

This study is about a system for monitoring the breathing cycles of divers and the functioning of regulators underwater. It warns the diver and other surrounding divers in case of long time cessation of respiration or if the regulator’s intermediate pressure is out of predefined limits, enabling immediate intervention to regulator and breathing problems. The system is equipped with two pressure sensors and a microprocessor. It can be quickly mounted on the scuba diver’s equipment to sense distortions in the intermediate pressure and to sense the depth while underwater. Generally all data, including dive profile, are logged and transferable to PC for post-dive analysis. The low and high level alarms enable immediate intervention in case of breathing or regulator problems. Major benefits of the system are rapid detection of respiration and regulator problems and ease of locating an unconscious or deceased diver. Additionally, this system aims at contributing to decompression illness research and at helping regulator manufacturers with the data it will collect while underwater. While this study focuses on the hardware development of the system, breathing detection algorithms are currently being studied and optimized off-line using data collected by the system

Underwater position estimation for an underwater vehicle using unscented Kalman filter

Marine researchers need consistent historical and georeferenced data from the marine environment in order to constantly monitor the biological condition of the habitat or to document delicate archeological sites. To overcome the difficulties related to the acquisition of high quantity of worthy data and to the accurate estimation of the position, the development of easy to-use IT tools could certainly help. This article aims to present a tool that can equip different type of underwater vehicles capable of estimating its position during his surveys using its on-board sensors and with the aid of an external buoy. The estimation algorithm is based on the UKF technique and some preliminary simulation results of its performances are presented

Design and Validation of a Breathing Detection System for Scuba Divers

Abstract Drowning is the major cause of death in self-contained underwater breathing apparatus (SCUBA) diving. This study proposes an embedded system with a live and light-weight algorithm which detects the breathing of divers through the analysis of the intermediate pressure (IP) signal of the SCUBA regulator. A system composed mainly of two pressure sensors and a low-power microcontroller was designed and programmed to record the pressure sensors signals and provide alarms in absence of breathing. An algorithm was developed to analyze the signals and identify inhalation events of the diver. A waterproof case was built to accommodate the system and was tested up to a depth of 25 m in a pressure chamber. To validate the system in the real environment, a series of dives with two different types of workload requiring different ranges of breathing frequencies were planned. Eight professional SCUBA divers volunteered to dive with the system to collect their IP data in order to participate to validation trials. The subjects underwent two dives, each of 52 min on average and a maximum depth of 7 m. The algorithm was optimized for the collected dataset and proved a sensitivity of inhalation detection of 97.5% and a total number of 275 false positives (FP) over a total recording time of 13.9 h. The detection algorithm presents a maximum delay of 5.2 s and requires only 800 bytes of random-access memory (RAM). The results were compared against the analysis of video records of the dives by two blinded observers and proved a sensitivity of 97.6% on the data set. The design includes a buzzer to provide audible alarms to accompanying dive buddies which will be triggered in case of degraded health conditions such as near drowning (absence of breathing), hyperventilation (breathing frequency too high) and skip-breathing (breathing frequency too low) measured by the improper breathing frequency. The system also measures the IP at rest before the dive and indicates with flashing light-emitting diodes and audible alarm the regulator malfunctions due to high or low IP that may cause fatal accidents during the dive by preventing natural breathing. It is also planned to relay the alarm signal to underwater and surface rescue authorities by means of acoustic communication

Procedures and technologies for 3D reconstruction with divers of underwater archaeological sites and marine protected areas

Underwater monitoring and exploration actions are fundamental to preserve natural habitats and submerged cultural heritage, but researchers have to face high costs related to technology and staff to carry out researches in this troublesome environment. As a partial solution to these problems, Citizen Science has been incrementally employed by the scientific community but, to effectively make the most of it, it is mandatory to design two components: a generic-scenario procedure that describes the steps to perform before, during and after the survey and tailored technologies to acquire, gather, process and visualize the environmental data. In this work, a procedure tested in different underwater missions, that is the enhancement of a precedent one, and technologies that, arranged in a pipeline, carry out all the process from data acquisition to output visualization are presented. The procedure and technology were tested in tailored tests aimed to guarantee the validity of the technologies

Design and Implementation of an Underwater Telemetric Glucose Monitoring System for Scuba Divers

Despite the abundance of telemetric applications for ecology, behaviour and physiology of marine life, few efforts were reported about the use of acoustic telemetry for SCUBA divers. Such systems are required to follow the medical conditions of divers with chronic health problems such as diabetics. This study communicates the details of a study to design, manufacture and test a prototype system that measures the blood glucose while diving and transmit the results in real time to the surface. A subcutaneous glucose sensor placed on the diver transmits wirelessly the glycaemia data to a microcontroller based RF receiver board placed in a custom built waterproof casing. This board works as a relay to transmit the blood glucose value to an acoustic modem SAM-1 (Desert Star Systems LLC, Monterey Bay, CA, USA) via RS232 serial communication. The modem transmits the data to the other modem, which is placed underwater at 1 m depth with a maximum baud rate of 100 bit/sec with ultrasound communication. Finally, the data reaches a portable computer from RS232 serial interface of the acoustic modem. The data is displayed and logged on the computer based at the surface. The whole system is tested to 11 Bar in hyperbaric chamber. The acoustical data link is first established between two computers located at surface to test the reliability of the communication. The acoustical link experiments were successful for 20 minutes of simulated signals for the depth, interstitial glycaemia, breathing frequency and temperature information. The overall efficiency was 80.1%, with 474 bytes sent and 378 bytes received. The bandwidth of the acoustical link is very low (max 4 reading/min) but is adequate for glycaemia monitoring that can be as low as 1 reading every 5 minutes. Finally the system recorded the interstitial glucose of divers in 8 open water dives successfully and will be beneficial for studying diabetic divers. The system has a potential to be used to verify and optimize the existing protocols on diabetic divers. It offers as well an emergency system to monitor the non-diabetic divers during extreme exposures such as saturation divin

DocuScooter: A novel robotics platform for marine citizen science

Conservation and monitoring of marine systems and large-scale underwater data acquisition are too demanding for single researchers. The exploitation of citizen science and the development of new technology can significantly facilitate these actions. In this work a novel system that allows scuba divers to collect data during their leisure activity is presented. It consists of a modular robotics system connected with a variable number of heterogeneous payloads, directly manageable through a tablet, to equip an underwater scooter. After the mission, the user can upload the data on an appropriate web server and launch a 3D reconstruction process, providing ad-hoc outputs for different applications. Copyright © 2017 by the International Society of Offshore and Polar Engineers (ISOPE)

Telecommunications in the ICT Age: From Research to Applications

The human society in the information age deeply relies on digital information processing, communication and storage. Photonic routing and switchingis expected to be exploited in future all-optical networks. Channel coding is needed in order to protect information against natural disturbances, and modern coding schemes are able to reach the ultimate limits predicted by Shannon. On the other hand, postquantum cryptography is necessary for assuring security against cyber attackers, possibly provided with quantum computers. Source coding, especially in video data compression, is recommended for optimizing the bandwidth usage. Spread spectrum systems can solve the problem of radio transmissions over common frequency bands. These technologies are of crucial importance for the evolution of networks and of the whole Internet, allowing people to interact each other and access information in the web. Nowadays, the conventional Internet of people has moved into the pervasive Internet of Things providing innovative services in a variety of application fields. In this respect, domotic systems, based on ambient and wearable sensors, appear of dramatic importance in the design of future assisted living protocols