Physiological Data Acquisition System Documentation
Abstract
This report describes a data acquisition system developed to obtain electrocardiogram (ECU), pulse waveform core and skin temperature measurements, as well as ambient climatic conditions. These data are typical of those collected during heat-strain studies in climatic chambers in USARfEM. Since acceptable commercial systems are not available, this system was custom-built to acquire data using National Instruments hardware components and LabVIEW 7.0 Express Developmental Software. General requirements for this system are that it be highly accurate, precise, and expandable for future studies. The system also needs to function within the environmental temperatures of the protocol. Data collection for this system is achieved by sampling analog and digital signals at regular intervals from thermocouples, thermistors, outboard data collection devices, user input controls, and modifying them within the custom software to obtain real-time measurements. The software Graphical User Interface (GUI) is designed to be user-friendly, with minimal user input configurations to manage. The interface is also designed to provide both a graphical history of data, as well as a numerical history in tabular form. Finally, data are secured by opening the destination file, appending data to this file, and closing this file each time data are collected. This method ensures that data are not lost during power failure or if the LabVIEW software is corrupted.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2005
- Accession Number
- ADA430159
Entities
People
- L. Elliott
- S. B. Robinson
Organizations
- United States Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine