Design and implementation of a smart sensor for respiratory rate monitoring

This work presents the design, development and implementation of a smart sensor to monitor the respiratory rate. This sensor is aimed at overcoming the drawbacks of other systems currently available in market, namely, devices that are costly, uncomfortable, difficult-to-install, provide low detection sensitivity, and little-to-null patient-to-patient calibration. The device is based on capacitive sensing by means of an LC oscillator. Experimental results show that the sensor meets the necessary requirements, making feasible the proposed monitoring system with the technology used.This work has been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, and FEDER funds under grant FPA2010-22131-C02-02, and by the Andalussian Innovation, Science and Enterprise Council, under grants P08-TIC-04069 and P10-TIC-6311