Design of T-EVA: Wearable Temperature Monitoring System for Upper Limbs during Extravehicular Activities on Mars

Palacios P.; Castillo W.; Rivera M.V.; Cornejo J. · Proceedings of the 2020 IEEE Engineering International Research Conference, EIRCON 2020 (2020) · DOI: 10.1109/eircon51178.2020.9254027

Resumen

When astronauts explore the surface of Mars performing extravehicular activities, they will be exposed to extreme environmental conditions that may cause thermal homeostasis imbalance, loss of sensitivity, peripheral cyanosis and heat exhaustion. For this reason, it is necessary for biomechatronic systems to be integrated into the Spacesuit, so that they allow the monitoring of vital signs as in the case of body temperature. A research study was conducted from 2019 to 2020, under the supervision and guidance of Space Medicine and Biomechatronics Research Group-TMSP, resulting in the proposed project named 'T-EVA', labeled 'Medical Robot' as a Wearable Device, which consists of 5 sensors anatomically distributed in the upper plane of the human body. It sends data to a microcontroller in order to convert, process and transmit information to the 'Bracelet' and the 'Remote Monitoring Center' that will allow visualizing the temperature in real-Time. Furthermore, T-EVA has been chosen in 2020 by The Mars Society Peru to be used and tested at The Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, the U.S., in order to be part of Team Peru VI. The conceptual design is presented, which was made using the software 'Autodesk Eagle 9.6.0' for the electrical and electronic design, and 'Autodesk Inventor 2020' for the mechanical design. In conclusion, favorable results were achieved; therefore, the next step of this project will be its implementation and development, which has been confirmed to be ready by 2021.