Pervasive and Personalized Ambient Parameters Monitoring: A Wearable, Modular, and Configurable Watch

Abstract

An innovative, small, compact, light-weighted, configurable, and low power consumption wrist-worn prototype in the area of ambient parameters monitoring, in five physical layers, is introduced. The prototype is based on the multi-layer multi-sensor approach and is capable of measuring a wide range of toxic/hazardous gases, physical ambient parameters, and motion tracking. The proposed device operates in the stand-alone (BLE disconnected) and configurable (BLE connected) modes. The stand-alone mode supports real-time data monitoring on the display and data storage in an integrated external memory. The logged data are retrieved once BLE is resumed based on the user decision. In the configuration mode, sensors are activated and configured by the user via sending a command from the smartphone. The chemical parameters monitoring includes three hazardous gases (SO 2 , NO 2 , and CO one at each time). The toxic gas sensor along with the gas sensor driver forms the gas sensor node which is located at the top of the proposed device. Hardware flex interface is utilized as the second layer to facilitate the display and sound module connected to the host platform. The main platform that is expandable from both the sides in z -axis hosts the integrated sensors, microcontroller, and the chip antenna. Notification driver for the early user warning of abnormal status and battery holder is placed at the bottom of the device in two separate layers. Furthermore, the adjustable sensor sampling rate according to the battery level is applied in order to manage power consumption. Device configuration, prototype validation, data storage, power dissipation, and experimental results are discussed in detail at the end of this paper.