Wook Jae YOO, Kyoung Won JANG, Jeong Ki SEO, Ji Yeon HEO, Jin Soo MOON, Jae Hoon JUN, Jang-Yeon PARK^*, and Bongsoo LEE

School of Biomedical Engineering, College of Biomedical and Health Science, Research Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Konkuk University, Chungju 380-701, Korea

(Received May 31, 2010; Revised October 6, 2010; Accepted October 14, 2010)

In this study, two types of nasal-cavity-attached fiber-optic respiration sensors have been fabricated for noninvasive respiratory monitoring. One is a silver halide optical-fiber-based respiration sensor that can measure the variations of infrared radiation generated by the respiratory airflow from a nasal cavity. The other is a thermochromic-pigment-based fiber-optic respiration sensor that can measure the intensity of reflected light which changes owing to color variations of the temperature-sensing film according to the temperature difference between inspiratory and expiratory air. We have demonstrated the similarities of the respiratory signals using the fiber-optic respiration sensors and the temperature transducer of the BIOPAC^® system. In addition, we verified that respiratory signals without the deterioration of the MR image can be obtained using the fiber-optic respiration sensors. It is anticipated that the proposed noninvasive fiber-optic respiration sensors will be highly effective for respiratory monitoring of a patient during MRI procedures.

Key words: fiber-optic sensor, plastic optical fiber, respiration sensor, silver halide optical fiber, thermochromic pigment

^*E-mail address: jyparu@kku.ac.kr