Ph.D. Defence of Sehrish Ashraf

  • -
  • 12:30 noon
  • College of Home Economics

Conduction of Public Defence in respect of Sehrish Ashraf Ph. D research scholar, College of Home Economics, University of Peshawar

Date: 19-05-2026
Time: 02:30 noon
Venue: College of Home Economics 
Research Functional Clothing Design and Implementation for Health Monitoring


Abstract

 

COVID-19 had far-reaching impacts on both developed and developing countries. Nearly half of the population in Pakistan does not have access to medical care, and the percentage is even higher in rural and remote areas. Aside from disparities in healthcare resources in remote areas, women in Pakistan face significant challenges when it comes to accessing health care due to disapproval of independent traveling and inadequate representation of female healthcare provider. This research presents an open-source, Internet-of-Things (IoT)-based functional clothing for health monitoring that is intended to mitigate the basic healthcare challenges posed to remote areas of developing countries.

Role of Clothing during the pandemic and post pandemic era is more obvious in the form of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), i.e. face masks, gloves and coveralls. With consideration of both aspects, clothing and wearable technology, functional clothing has been designed for remote health monitoring. To realize this objective an IoT server has been configured on XIAO ESP32-C3, a compact, thumb-sized 21x17.5mm IoT development board with rich peripherals and a powerful processor that was connected to a MAX 30100 (Blood Oxygen level and Heart Rate) sensor, designed to meet the demanding requirements by integrating pulse oximeter and heart rate measurement, a DHT11 (Humidity and Temperature) sensor, and a global positioning system GPS module. Consequently, it enables to measure the heart rate (HR), blood oxygen level (SpO2), human body temperature, ambient temperature and humidity, as well as the location. The circuit designing had been executed with sew able sensors, connected using conductive thread with a resistance of 40 ohms per meter. The objective of designing functional clothing that is cost-effective was achieved by incorporating open-source technology and low-cost wearable technology components into the proposed functional clothing design. The designed health monitoring system is protected with a set of security controls such as service set identifier (SSID), Password, and firewalls. The functional clothing design proposed as a part of this study, is aesthetically pleasing, practical and user friendly. As an additional benefit, users can reduce their frequent hospital visits, which results in both time and financial savings, and the user’s daily routine such as professional or personal engagements remains unaffected. Such systems can help limit the spread of infectious diseases. Within the scope of this research, the details of a complete functional clothing design, components details, circuit implementation, testing, and results are presented. The maximum error observed after the comparison of the values in case of body temperature is 0.4 and in case of bpm and blood oxygen levels maximum error observed is 1. The outcome values by the proposed functional clothing design regarding temperature and humidity are also compared by the standard thermo-hygrometer and the results indicate the error margin of 0.5? and 1%.

Wearable sensors have been used to design an electrical circuit for health monitoring through the course of this study. After the validation of sensors’ real time data, a prototype for dress designing had been constructed through the CLO3D software. To achieve a balance between formal and informal dress design, an A-line silhouette has been chosen and modified according to the Pakistani cultural dress “Kameez”. In recognition of its cultural acceptance along with its aesthetically pleasing appearance, the dress has full sleeves. After finalizing the dress pattern, it was draped virtually on the 3D avatar. Dress had been designed as loose shirt to make it easier to put it on in daily life. For the course of this research size 10 or M (Medium) has been used. Besides, the dress had been tested for stress and strain test. It made sure that the dress is comfortable and loose enough that will not irritate the wearer. In the later phases of the study implementation of the hardware onto the dress was focused. Through the course of this study, a superimposed seam is used to sew the designed functional clothing that belongs to class one seam category.

The main objective of this study was to design a traditional dress to serve the purpose of health monitoring as opposed to conventional clinical looking wearable. The precise readings after implementation onto the dress underscore the effectiveness of sensors, microcontroller and the GPS module integration and reliable data transmission over the UI using IP. The design proposed as a part of this study is novel in application of wearable technology into traditional Pakistani women dress. Based on the related work no such study has been conducted before that presents such a design that implements IoT for health monitoring onto traditional Pakistani dress. This study can also be considered novel in terms of its design and application. This research paves the way for wearable healthcare solutions that integrate health monitoring into everyday clothing, potentially transforming the apparel industry.