MSCA.24.DeGiovanni

Objective:

In the context of the EU "Healthier Together" initiative, the main objectives include reducing the significant health burden of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs), especially cardiorespiratory (CR) ones, and improving the overall health and well-being of the community. As several CR diseases manifest during extreme exercise, there is a need to monitor these conditions and tailor the exercise regimens to the specific subject’s CR profile. The goal of SWEATHEART is to create an energy-efficient embedded wearable system to continuously monitor CR parameters during high-intensity exercise and exercise-induced phenomena in elite athletes, whose profile is the most suited. It will use accurate wearable sensors in real-world training sessions to tailor exercise prescriptions and prevent overreaching and cardiorespiratory issues. To achieve the goal, SWEATHEART will follow three objectives: 1) Detect the CR parameters in real-time using an optimal set of non-invasive and low-cost wearable sensors and emerging computing techniques; 2) Detect fatigue and overreaching derived by extreme exercise based on the extracted CR parameters; 3) Design an energy-efficient embedded system for tailored exercise prescription based on the CR parameters and overreaching. The project requires multidisciplinary involvement of different parties. The host institution and the supervisor have extensive knowledge of mathematical and statistical modeling and machine learning methodologies. Moreover, their collaborations with sports clubs and the supervisor's start-up experience will enhance the project results and the researchers's future career development. The secondment institution specializes in exercise physiology and has long-lasting experience in data protocol design. The applicant contributes to the system-level design of embedded wearable sensors for biomedical applications. The hosts and applicant will mutually benefit from the project outcomes and the newly formed collaborations.