Development of Sensor-Embedded Real-time Posture Monitoring Shirt: Enhancing the Awarness for Healthy Posture

Spinal disorders caused by bad posture have become a major concern in recent years. The slanting for a long duration during work and loading large weight on the body plays a substantial role in the deterioration of posture. To prevent and treat spinal disorders, a real-time posture monitoring device is needed which can monitor posture during daily activities. For this purpose, a real-time wearable smart posture monitoring shirt has been developed. The shirt is designed by using a multiplexer, Bluetooth module, lithium battery, and microcontroller along with Arduino Nano which were interfaced with three MPU 6050 sensors placed on Cervical-1, Thoracic-5, and Lumber-5 to monitor and visualize the posture in real-time. The microcontroller Arduino Nano was programmed by Arduino IDE Software in which complementary filter was implemented. The data processed by the microcontroller was visualized on the mobile app through a Bluetooth module. The results show that the smart shirt can be used for objective measurement of posture in rehabilitation, sports, and medicine. The smart posture monitoring shirt is washable, lightweight, economical, user friendly and provides quantitative information during sitting, standing, and walking. The analysis of the data can be used to maintain a normal posture that can prevent and treat spinal disorders.