Wearable System for Heat Stress Monitoring in Firefighting Applications

The paper proposes a multiparameter sensor platform capable of measuring the rate and thermal stress state which the user (in particular a firefighter) is subject to. For that, three wearable sensors (temperature, humidity and heart rate) send the information via Zigbee low energy wireless protocol, to a remote device (smartphone, wrist watch or PDA) monitoring the status of the worker. Additionally, an activity sensor allows the determination of body fall or immobilization situations. Preliminary tests support the viability of the proposed solution.