Validation Tests on a Knitted Respiration Sensor

Respiration and heart rate are crucial bio signals that provide valuable insights into the intensity of physical activity. These parameters reflect the body's physiological state, offering information about fatigue levels and ability to recover. Monitoring these bio signals enables a better understanding of the body's response to physical exertion, allowing for optimization of exercise regimes, recovery protocols and assessment of overall physical fitness. In this paper we discuss the performance of a newly developed respiration sensor during a series of validation tests with 11 subjects of varying body masses and fitness level. The sensor is designed for medical applications, intended for long-term monitoring periods. The sensor detects resistance changes due to chest expansion and is knitted to ensure maximum comfort. Our study demonstrated that the sensor accurately measured respiratory frequencies, both at rest and during intensive exercise, with results in perfect agreement with those obtained from a standard COSMED face mask.