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Guest Editor

Department of Information Engineering, Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Florence, Italy
Interests: next generation wireless terrestrial; satellite systems; digital signal processing; security; privacy; human bond communications

Dr. Lorenzo Mucchi

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Guest Editor

Department of Information Engineering, University of Firenze, Via S. Marta 3, 50139 Firenze, Italy
Interests: physical layer security; UWB positioning systems; visible light communications; molecular communications; body area networks; 6G; 5G; networks for healthcare applications
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Dr. Simone Morosi

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Department of Information Engineering, Universita degli Studi di Firenze, Florence, Italy
Interests: TLC; ICT; signal processing; energy efficiency; human bond communications

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Extensive research and innovations have started to change user requirements for new services and applications, thanks to the expansion and rapid penetration of ICT. Today, the evolution of wireless communication systems is typically focused on improving the performance of information exchange between two or more communication nodes. In the very near future, novel personalized services will emerge, driven by new user expectations. The virtualization of human emotions, senses, and thoughts, i.e., Human Bond Communications (HBC), reflect this communication paradigm shift. This revolutionary and divergent approach represents a holistic system capable of describing and transmitting the features of an object in a way that humans perceives them. A physical object, thanks to the Human Bond Communications, can be modelled and digitalized, incorporating all human senses in the domain of information. The information associated to a physical object can be then transmitted through an underlying communication platform. Another related and important topic of HBC is the security and privacy of personal data. This Special Issue focuses on “Human Bond Communication” related topics, aiming to provide a comprehensive survey of the current research works in this field.

Prof. Dr. Enrico Del Re
Prof. Dr. Lorenzo Mucchi
Dr. Simone Morosi
Guest Editors

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Keywords

Digital human senses
Smart human-sense transductors
Human-to-machine and HBC interfaces
HBC sensors and replicators
Wireless sensors and actuators
Body area networks
Security and privacy of personal data
Augmentation of senses
Wearable devices and sensors

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

Open AccessArticle

An Autonomous Wireless Health Monitoring System Based on Heartbeat and Accelerometer Sensors

Saif Saad Fakhrulddin

and

Sadik Kamel Gharghan

J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2019, 8(3), 39; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan8030039 - 13 Jul 2019

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 8015

Abstract

Falls are a main cause of injury for patients with certain diseases. Patients who wear health monitoring systems can go about daily activities without limitations, thereby enhancing their quality of life. In this paper, patient falls and heart rate were accurately detected and measured using two proposed algorithms. The first algorithm, abnormal heart rate detection (AHRD), improves patient heart rate measurement accuracy and distinguishes between normal and abnormal heart rate functions. The second algorithm, TB-AIC, combines an acceleration threshold and monitoring of patient activity/inactivity functions to accurately detect patient falls. The two algorithms were practically implemented in a proposed autonomous wireless health monitoring system (AWHMS). The AWHMS was implemented based on a GSM module, GPS, microcontroller, heartbeat and accelerometer sensors, and a smartphone. The measurement accuracy of the recorded heart rate was evaluated based on the mean absolute error, Bland–Altman plots, and correlation coefficients. Fourteen types of patient activities were considered (seven types of falling and seven types of daily activities) to determine the fall detection accuracy. The results indicate that the proposed AWHMS succeeded in monitoring the patient’s vital signs, with heart rate measurement and fall detection accuracies of 98.75% and 99.11%, respectively. In addition, the sensitivity and specificity of the fall detection algorithm (both 99.12%) were explored. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Wireless Systems for Human Bond Communications)

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Open AccessArticle

A System for Monitoring Breathing Activity Using an Ultrasonic Radar Detection with Low Power Consumption

and

J. Sens. Actuator Netw. 2019, 8(2), 32; https://doi.org/10.3390/jsan8020032 - 24 May 2019

Cited by 18 | Viewed by 7080

Abstract

Continuous monitoring of breathing activity plays a major role in detecting and classifying a breathing abnormality. This work aims to facilitate detection of abnormal breathing syndromes, including tachypnea, bradypnea, central apnea, and irregular breathing by tracking of thorax movement resulting from respiratory rhythms based on ultrasonic radar detection. This paper proposes a non-contact, non-invasive, low cost, low power consumption, portable, and precise system for simultaneous monitoring of normal and abnormal breathing activity in real-time using an ultrasonic PING sensor and microcontroller PIC18F452. Moreover, the obtained abnormal breathing syndrome is reported to the concerned physician’s mobile telephone through a global system for mobile communication (GSM) modem to handle the case depending on the patient’s emergency condition. In addition, the power consumption of the proposed monitoring system is reduced via a duty cycle using an energy-efficient sleep/wake scheme. Experiments were conducted on 12 participants without any physical contact at different distances of 0.5, 1, 2, and 3 m and the breathing rates measured with the proposed system were then compared with those measured by a piezo respiratory belt transducer. The experimental results illustrate the feasibility of the proposed system to extract breathing rate and detect the related abnormal breathing syndromes with a high degree of agreement, strong correlation coefficient, and low error ratio. The results also showed that the total current consumption of the proposed monitoring system based on the sleep/wake scheme was 6.936 mA compared to 321.75 mA when the traditional operation was used instead. Consequently, this led to a 97.8% of power savings and extended the battery life time from 8 h to approximately 370 h. The proposed monitoring system could be used in both clinical and home settings. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Future Wireless Systems for Human Bond Communications)

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