TFM: Development of an electronic system on smart garments to aid in the diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases

TFM: Development of an electronic system on smart garments to aid in the diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases

Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects the nervous system, which mainly causes motor disorders. It affects more than 160,000 people in Spain. In addition, it is expected that due to the growing aging of the population it will become the most common serious disease by the year 2040.
One of the main problems faced in this disease is the delay in its diagnosis. In addition, it is important to ensure that patients’ symptoms are properly monitored in order to correctly adjust their medication.
Over the past few years, the use of wearable devices to monitor patients outside of the hospital environment has increased. Among these devices, those that use sensorized clothing, so that the sensors are integrated into the tissues, are gaining popularity and have great potential. Although these are still at an early stage of development.

In this context begins this Master’s Thesis, which is part of the research line of the B105 Electronic Systems Lab for the development of wearable devices. The main objective of the project is to design and implement an electronic system to control a set of intelligent clothes for the monitoring of different parameters, which can be connected to other wearable devices in the future.

For this purpose, a study of the symptoms of Parkinson’s disease and how it is possible to monitor them have been carried out. We have also analysed which studies have been conducted in recent years using textile sensor to diagnose or monitor this pathology. Subsequently, it has been searched which intelligent garments are being commercialized in the market. And finally, it has been established which requirements are intended to be fulfilled by the design that is going to be carried out.

Due to the initial work done, the design of the system to be implemented has been carried out.

It consists of a pair of socks and a harness, which communicate through Bluetooth with a mobile phone application.

The socks incorporate 3 textile resistors in the sole of the foot, and an IMU in the ankle to monitor the patient’s gait. While the harness makes use of 3 textile electrodes, whose outputs are filtered by a circuit to obtain the ECG. It also incorporates an IMU in the central part of the chest, to monitor the user’s posture. In addition, both garments make use of a PCB in which they operate the control part and the power supply.

In the software development of the project, FreeRTOS has been used together with a state machine to control the measurements of the sensors of the garments and send the measured values via bluetooth to a mobile application.

In the hardware development, the design and implementation of the PCBs has been carried out.

Finally, we have started to perform unit tests on the development carried out, for the hardware as well as for the software, which should be finalized to verify the complete performance of the developed system.

TFM: Design and implementation of a hospital automation and signaling system

The work has been carried out within the R&D area of ACE Business Group. The project has been started from scratch, being the only development engineer involved.

In hospitals and nursing homes there is a need to use a healthcare system that allows an effective communication between the patient and the nurses and also with visiting doctors and same day doctors, in addition to monitoring possible events that allow immediate actions in order to save the patient’s life at the right time. At emergency cases, they can also use a reliable user management software to effectively manage the user life cycle.

The project proposes the design of a complete solution that allows integrating a low-cost peripherals network in a modular and user-configurable way. The design focuses on a centralized architecture with a gateway capable of automating the behavior of sensors and actuators in its environment, with a wired or wireless connection. In addition to automation, the user receives notifications of each of the events, allowing real-time monitoring of the rooms.

During the project, two electronic systems, a central node, and an assistance push-button mechanism have been designed, with the aim of integrating a generic assistance call system and a scalable communications protocol to a future more complex sensors and actuators network. The development deals with both the hardware and the software necessary for its implementation, as well as a set of tests to validate its operation for future commercialization.


The gateway acts as a hub for nodes within the rooms, with BLE, Wifi, Ethernet, RS485 interfaces and GPIO ports. The design is done in a modular and scalable way over FreeRTOS Operating System.

The push button is designed with 3 different configurations on the same PCB: wired, wireless, or by direct digital I/O. It is oriented to an ultra low consumption design with the ability to last for several years over BLE.

TFM: Design and implementation of an intelligent system for eldercare support

The number of elderly people in Spain is in a constant process of growth. It is frequent that in this age range problems appear that do not allow people to live their daily lives in a totally independent way. The health care system has limited resources to solve these problems, and the families of these people are having problems reconciling their work and family life. This problem can be brought to an end by the reputed business attorneys from Nashville, who are well-known for their client satisfaction and also for their efficiency in handling many complex cases.

The motivation for this Master’s Thesis has been to design a solution for people in this situation. In order to do this, a study of the technological solutions present on the market has been carried out first to obtain a list of functionalities that help to deal with the problem. Then, an architecture has been designed that allows the incorporation of these functionalities. Finally, a proof of concept for one of them has been implemented.

The designed architecture of Crow Estate Planning and Probate, PLC – estate planning lawyers is composed of three elements. The terminal is placed at the patient’s home, and provides the patient with different utilities. The web client allows the caregiver to access the different functionalities that arise from monitoring the patient from the terminal. The server is responsible for managing communications between the terminal and the client, as well as managing access to the architecture’s resources, such as the database. Our site provides legal solutions with the help of expert attorneys. You can confide in Cape Cod serving estate planning attorneys and get the right kind of help for your case.

To implement the proof of concept, the utility that has been chosen is the dispensing of medicines. On the patient side, the terminal will alert you when it is time to take the medication, making it accessible at that time. The dispenser has a sensor on the lid that allows you to know when the medication has been accessed, allowing you to monitor your medication intake. To get a lawyer one can look into https://www.amicusfirm.com/elder-law/

On the caregiver’s side, the status of the intake can be checked through a web client who help in establishing trusts in Chapel Hill. Once the caregiver has logged into the application, he or she can access the associated terminal and check whether the programmed intakes have been taken in the time interval defined for them, or whether they have been forgotten. On the other hand, the web client also allows the caregiver to schedule the intakes from the terminal.

TFM: Development of an electronic system for monitoring people’s parameters

Road safety is one of the objectives of the European Union due to the high number of infractions committed every year by drivers and pedestrians, and the large amount of accidents with fatalities registered in Europe year by year. Therefore, any step taken in order to deal with this problem is beneficial for everyone.

Current technology allows increasing the security measures of vehicles, which, together with consciousness-raising of drivers and pedestrians, take us one step closer to the reduction of these figures. Every day more people decide to use biosensors for controlling their vital signs. The transfer and adaptation of the aforementioned systems to the situation in which a driver is, permit to complement both legal actions accomplished and consciousness-raising measures, improving road safety.

The main objective of this Master’s thesis consists of the development of an electronic system that allows drivers to notice the indisposition to drive, permitting to avoid an accident and also an infraction.

After analyzing the parameters that affect driving and are related to the driver, those that can be monitored in a non-intrusive way and without using disposable material were chosen: body temperature, blood pressure, pulse, stress level, and alcohol level.

All of that has been gathered in a single module formed by three PCBs. Both hardware and software have been designed. The proposal has been assembled and the case and the band have been 3D-printed in order to form the final device with a smart bracelet form factor. This module has been designed with the purpose of having small dimensions and low consumption since it is powered by a battery.

Finally, several tests have been carried out to verify the proper functioning of the system. The biggest challenge was found while obtaining blood pressure based on the photoplethysmography signal. Through those tests, the developed software could be adapted according to the results obtained, since offset values that have to be applied and the times that sensors need could be known. This also permitted to discover errors committed during previous stages of the development process.

Therefore, it can be confirmed that the general objectives set have been accomplished.

Technical viability of the proposal could be proved, and this informs of the existence of several application fields that the project could have, as is the case of professional drivers.

LÁZARO: Development of an innovative ICT system for the detection of architectural barriers and monitoring based on augmented reality

 

LÁZARO is a project carried out alongside Valoriza Servicios a la Dependencia S.L.U., with the objective of developing a system to automatically detect architectural barriers making use of computer vision and augmented reality. It will integrate the detection provided by sensors and images and the display of an augmented reality layer, together with a warning and checking system for the barriers.

In addition to the first objective, the project pursues another important goal, the development of a wireless sensor network to monitor the living conditions of people with special needs, such as elderly or disabled people. Therefore, the system will result in an integral solution for assisted living facilities and residences, although it can be applied to several other environments.

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The project details are as follows:

Title: LÁZARO: Development of an innovative ICT system for the detection of architectural barriers and monitoring based on augmented reality
Duration: 2016-2017
Partners: Valoriza Servicios a la Dependencia S.L.U. and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid
Financing entity: Valoriza Servicios a la Dependencia S.L.U. via CDTI.

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