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The nasal breathing parameters have shown promising applications in hyperventilation, Kussmaul breathing, sleep apnea, shortness of breath in COVID-19, bradypnea, sinus arrhythmia, and breathing pranayama. However, a wearable setup, which is affordable, aesthetic, and accurate in real-time during various physical activities, is not available currently. The present work develops a novel, low-cost and wearable instrumented Nasal Temperature Sensing (NTS) device for measuring various breathing parameters. The proposed device was tested during controlled breathing exercises in seated position at three ambient temperature settings (18°C, 28°C, and 38°C). The device was further tested for standing and walking at various speeds including slow (1.5 Km/hr), medium (3.5 Km/hr), and fast (5.5 Km/hr). The NTS device is compared against a commercially available respiration belt (gold standard). The mean absolute error (averaged across subjects and ambient temperature settings) was 0.09±0.05 breaths per minute (bpm), 0.17±0.10 bpm, and 0.13±0.13 bpm for controlled breathing at 6 bpm, 12 bpm, and 18 bpm, respectively. The Root-mean-square error between the NTS device and respiration belt across the subjects at the normal standing-position was 1.13±0.39 bpm. The results suggest that the proposed NTS device is accurate for real-time applications with the potential advantage of being robust enough to motion artifacts.

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Neuromuscular disorders in Cerebral Palsy (CP) patients lead to foot deformities and affect foot biomechanics leading to compromised gait. The objective of the present work is to develop a wearable instrumentation to measure foot kinematics such as foot-to-ground angle in three-dimensional planes and to measure the foot clearance i.e., toe and heel clearances. A template-based outsole was developed that incorporated an optical distance sensor located anatomically on the outsole and the magnetometer to measure the foot kinematics. The developed system was validated against the reference marker-based motion capture system. The data from eight able-bodied participants were acquired simultaneously from both the systems at three different walking speeds. A CoP based feedback was presented to the participants to shift the sagittal CoP anteriorly, posteriorly and normal to simulate the walking pattern of CP patients with three different foot landing strategies. Pearson’s correlation coefficient of more than or equal to 0.62, root mean square error of less than or equal to 7.81 degrees and limit of agreement of more than or equal to 95% is found. The measurement accuracy reported with outsole while participants simulated CP gait shows the potential of present work in real-time foot kinematics detection in CP patients.