• Journal of Sensor Science and Technology
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.133-142
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• 2008

Respiration is induced by muscular contraction of the chest and abdomen, resulting in the abdominal volume change. Thus, continuous measurement of the abdominal dimension enables to monitor breathing activity. Conductive rubber cord has been previously introduced and tested to develop wearable application for respiratory measurements. The present study implemented wireless wearable respiratory monitoring system with the conductive rubber cord in the patient's pants. Signal extraction circuitry was developed to obtain the abdominal circumference changes reflecting the lung volume variation caused by respiratory activity. Wireless transmission was followed based on the zigbee communication protocol in a size of 65mm${\times}$105mm easily put in pocket. Successful wireless monitoring of respiration was performed in that breathing frequency was accurately estimated as well as different breathing patterns were easily recognized from the abdominal signal. $CO_2$ inhalation experiment was additionally performed in purpose of quantitative estimation of tidal volume. Air mixed with $0{\sim}5%\;CO_2$was inhaled by 4 normal males and the respiratory air flow rate, abdominal dimension change, and end tidal $CO_2$ concentration were simultaneously measured in steady state. $CO_2$ inhalation increased the tidal volume in normal physiological state with a correlation coefficient of 0.90 between the tidal volume and the end tidal $CO_2$ concentration. The tidal volume estimated from the abdominal signal linearly correlated with the accurate tidal volume measured by pneumotachometer with a correlation coefficient of 0.88 with mean relative error of approximately 8%. Therefore, the tidal volume was accurately estimated by measuring the abdominal dimension change.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.46 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2009

In this paper, a 2.4 GHz doppler radar system consisting of a doppler radar sensor and a baseband module were designed to detect heart beat and respiration signal without direct skin contact. The doppler radar system emits RF signal of 2.4 GHz toward human chest, and then detects phase modulation of the reflected signal so as to investigate cardiopulmonary activities. The heartbeat and respiration signals acquired from I/Q channels of the doppler radar system are applied to the pre-processing circuit, the amplification circuit, and the offset circuit of the baseband module. The designed system was tested on mouse, rabbit and mankind, which have different range of heart rates and respiration signals, to evaluate detection accuracy of the system. ECG acquisition system and respiration transducer were used to generate the reference signal. In our experiments, a performance of detection were found to be high in the case that the subject stays still. In this paper, we confirmed that non-contact heart beat and respiration detection using the doppler radar has the possibility and limitation according to distance, cardiopulmonary activities, range of heart rates and respiration.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Medical Physics Conference
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• 2005.04a
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• pp.59-63
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• 2005

Respiration motion causes movement of internal structures in the thorax and abdomen, making accurate delivery of radiation therapy to tumors in those areas a challenge. Accounting for such motion during treatment, therefore, has the potential to reduce margins drawn around the clinical target volume (CTV), resulting in a lower dose to normal tissues (e.g., lung and liver) and thus a lower risk of treatment induced complications. Among the techniques that explicitly account for intrafraction motion are breath-hold, respiration gating, and 4D or tumor-tracking techniques. Respiration gating methods periodically turn the beam on when the patient's respiration signal is in a certain part of the respiratory cycle (generally end-inhale or end-exhale). These techniques require acquisition of some form of respiration motion signal (infrared reflective markers, spirometry, strain gauge, thermistor, video tracking of chest outlines and fluoroscopic tracking of implanted markers are some of the techniques employed to date), which is assumed to be correlated with internal anatomy motion. In preliminary study for the respiratory gating radiation therapy, we performed to measurement of this respiration motion signal. In order to measure the respiratory motion signals of patient, respiration measurement system (RMS) was composed with three sensor (spirometer, thermistor, and belt transducer), 4 channel data acquisition system and mobile computer. For two patients, we performed to evaluation of respiratory cycle and shape with RMS. We observed under this system that respiratory cycle is generally periodic but asymmetric, with the majority of time spent. As expected, RMS traced patient's respiration each other well and be easily handled for application.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Electrical and Electronic Material Engineers Conference
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• 2007.11a
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• pp.346-346
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• 2007

압전세라믹 재료는 현재 압전 변압기, actuator, transducer, sensor, speaker 등에 광범위하게 이용이 되고 있다. 이 중에서 압전세라믹 소결체를 이용한 스피커의 제조는 가공이 까다롭고, 대형의 크기로 제작 시 소자가 깨지는 등의 많은 제약을 받고 있으며, 저음 특성이 떨어져 응용 범위가 한정되어 있다. 따라서 최근에는 이러한 단점을 극복하기 위하여 세라믹/고분자 복합체를 이용한 필름 스피커를 제작하고자 시도하고 있다. 이러한 세라믹/고분자 0-3형 압전 복합체를 이용할 경우, 제품의 경량화를 실현할 수 있고, 크기나 환경의 영향을 거의 받지 않으므로, 고기능성 스피커로의 응용에 적합할 것으로 보인다. 따라서 본 연구에서는 PZT계의 세라믹와 PVDF, PVDF-TrFE, Polyester, acrylic resin 등의 여러 고분자 물질과의 복합체를 제조하여 압전특성을 평가하였다. 본 실험은 먼저 $(Pb_{1-a-b}Ba_aCd_b)(Zr_xTi_{1-x})_{1-c-d}(Ni_{1/3}Nb_{2/3})_c(Zn_{1/3}Nb_{2/3})_dO_3$ (이하 PZT라 표기)의 최적화 조성을 선택하여, $1050^{\circ}C$에서 소결된 분말을 48시간 ball milling방법 로 약 $1{\mu}m$ 크기로 분쇄하였다. 고분자 물질들은 알맞은 용제들을 선택하여 녹였다. 그 다음 소결된 PZT분말과 고분자를 50:50, 60:40, 65:35, 70:30등의 무게 분율로 혼합하고, 분산제, 소포제 등을 첨가하여 3단 roll mill을 이용하여 충분히 분산시켜 페이스트 (Paste)를 제조하였다. 제조된 페이스트를 ITO가 코팅된 PET필름 위에 스크린 프린팅 법을 사용하여 인쇄하여 $120^{\circ}C$에서 5분간 건조하였다. 코팅된 복합체의 두께는 약 $80{\mu}m$ 정도로 측정되었다. Ag 페이스트를 이용한 상부 전극 형성에도 스크린 프린팅 법을 적용하였다. 이를 $120^{\circ}C$에서 4 kV/mm의 DC 전계로 분극 공정을 수행한 후 전기적 특성을 평가하였다. 유전특성을 조사하기 위해서 LCR meter (EDC-1620)를 사용하였고, 시편의 결정구조는 XRD (Rigaku; D/MAX-2500H)을 통해 분석하였으며, 전자현미경(SEM)을 이용하여 미세구조를 분석하였다. 압전 전하상수$(d_{33})$ 값은 APC 8000 모델을 이용하여 측정하였다. PZT의 혼합비가 증가할수록 비유전율 및 압전 전하 상수 등의 전기적 특성이 증가되었다. 또 여러 고분자 물질 중에서 PVDF-TrFE 수지가 가장 우수한 특성을 보였다. 이는 PVDF-TrFE 수지가 압전성을 나타내기 때문인 것으로 판단되었다.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
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• v.43 no.3
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• pp.361-367
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• 2024

Ultrasound in the air is widely used in industry as a measurement technique to prevent abnormalities in the machinery. Recently, the use of airborne ultrasound imaging techniques, which can find the location of abnormalities using an array transducers, is increasing. A beamforming method that uses the phase difference for each sensor is used to visualize the location of the ultrasonic sound source. We exploit a random sparse ultrasonic array and obtain beamforming power distribution on the source in a certain distance away from the array. Conventional beamforming methods inevitably have limited spatial resolution depending on the number of sensors used and the aperture size. A high-resolution ultrasound imaging technique was implemented by applying functional beamforming as a method to overcome the geometric constraints of the array. The functional beamforming method can be expressed as a generalized beam forming method mathematically, and has the advantage of being able to obtain high-resolution imaging by reducing main-lobe width and side lobes. As a result of observation through computer simulation, it was verified that the resolution of the ultrasonic source in the air was successfully increased by functional beamforming using the ultrasonic sparse array.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.45 no.4
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• pp.736-745
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• 1998

Background: Respiratory muscle interaction is further profoundly affected by a number of pathologic conditions. Hyperinflation may be particularly severe in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD) patients, in whom the functional residual capacity(FRC) often exceeds predicted total lung capacity(TLC). Hyperinflation reduces the diaphragmatic effectiveness as a pressure generator and reduces diaphragmatic contribution to chest wall motion. Ultrasonography has recently been shown to be a sensitive and reproducible method of assessing diaphragmatic excursion. This study was performed to evaluate how differences of diaphragmatic excursion measured by ultrasonography associate with normal subjects and COPD patients. Methods: We measured diaphragmatic excursions with ultrasonography on 28 healthy subjects(l6 medical students, 12 age-matched control) and 17 COPD patients. Ultrasonographic measurements were performed during tidal breathing and maximal respiratory efforts approximating vital capacity breathing using Aloka KEC-620 with 3.5 MHz transducer. Measurements were taken in the supine posture. The ultrasonographic probe was positioned transversely in the midclavicular line below the right subcostal margin. After detecting the right hemidiaphragm in the B-mode the ultrasound beam was then positioned so that it was approximately parallel to the movement of middle or posterior third of right diaphragm. Recordings in the M-mode at this position were made throughout the test. Measurements of diaphragmatic excursion on M-mode tracing were calculated by the average gap in 3 times-respiration cycle. Pulmonary function test(SensorMedics 2800), maximal inspiratory(PImax) and expiratory mouth pressure(PEmax, Vitalopower KH-101, Chest) were measured in the seated posture. Results: During the tidal breathing, diaphragmatic excursions were recorded $1.5{\pm}0.5cm$, $1.7{\pm}0.5cm$ and $1.5{\pm}0.6cm$ in medical students, age-matched control group and COPD patients, respectively. Diaphragm excursions during maximal respiratory efforts were significantly decreased in COPD patients ($3.7{\pm}1.3cm$) when compared with medical students, age-matched control group($6.7{\pm}1.3cm$, $5.8{\pm}1.2cm$, p< 0.05}. During maximal respiratory efforts in control subjects, diaphragm excursions were correlated with $FEV_1$, FEVl/FVC, PEF, PIF, and height. In COPD patients, diaphragm excursions during maximal respiratory efforts were correlated with PEmax(maximal expiratory pressure), age, and %FVC. In multiple regression analysis, the combination of PEmax and age was an independent marker of diaphragm excursions during maximal respiratory efforts with COPD patients. Conclusion: COPD subjects had smaller diaphragmatic excursions during maximal respiratory efforts than control subjects. During maximal respiratory efforts in COPD patients, diaphragm excursions were well correlated with PEmax. These results suggest that diaphragm excursions during maximal respiratory efforts with COPD patients may be valuable at predicting the pulmonary function.