Electromagnetic sensing of obstacles for Visually Impaired users

Respiration activity is one of the fundamental functions of the human being (also known as vital signs) which is monitored for health purposes. Often it is required to operate the sensing of the respiration activity out of hospitals or clinical environments and without contact with the patient and possibly from a distance i.e. for the home monitoring of patients or for the ambient assisted living, AAL). Unfortunately, at present the sensing apparatus for respiration monitoring purposes are mainly based on the use of contact methods (chest belt, nasal temperature transducers, etc.) which appear to be not suited for such tasks. In this paper, the authors propose a novel approach based on the use of electromagnetic sensing of the respiration activity of subject. The proposed approach provide a remote, continuous measurement of the inspiration/expiration acts of a subject without requiring a contact; these features of the proposed system are suited for domestic monitoring and AAL.