Facilities and equipments

Page reviewed:  09/04/2025

Sensola consists of a traditional laboratory in a controlled indoor environment, supporting a set of innovative portable equipment used for outdoor studies. The laboratory conducts research primarily in environmental psychology and landscape architecture.

The indoor laboratory consists of two equivalent experimental rooms and a control room. The experimental rooms contain equipment for audiovisual simulations of outdoor environments and measurement of psychophysiological responses. Monitoring and analysis take place in the control room. When fully developed, the goal is that the rooms will also support presentations of environments in Virtual Reality.

Sensola indoor laboratory
Indoor laboratory

To develop new and in-depth knowledge about how outdoor environments are experienced on site, smart and portable technology is used, which allows people to interact in a natural way with their surroundings. It is possible to collect both location data (e.g. GPS, accelerometry and video) and physiological responses (e.g. skin conductance, respiratory rate and pulse). Consumer-available technology such as heart rate monitors and chest straps enable data collection on a larger scale. The data can then be synchronized, visualized and analyzed in the physical indoor laboratory.

Sensola outdoor laboratory
Outdoor laboratory

Examples of equipment

Bionomadix

A basic system in the laboratory is the Biopac Bionomadix combined with the Acqknowledge software. The system consists of a set of portable equipment that records physiological data in real time, such as respiratory rate, pulse, heart rate variability and skin conductance. The data is synchronized, visualized and analyzed in the Acqknowledge software.

Eyetracking and VR

Eyetracking is a technique that makes it possible to understand in detail how test subjects view their surroundings visually, by registering eye movements, fixations and pupil size. There is screen-based eyetracking for indoor studies, as well as mobile eyetrackers for outdoor studies. Eyetracking can also be combined with simulated realities, Virtual Reality VR.

Location documentation

The laboratory has different types of video cameras, both conventional variants, action cameras, spy glasses and smart phones. Action cameras are developed to document outdoor activities, they have high resolution and good image stabilization. Spy glasses look like regular glasses, but have a hidden video camera integrated into the frame. In addition to video functionality, smart phones also have the ability to document accelerometry, GPS and can be synchronized with external devices via Bluetooth.

Empatica E4

Empatica E4 is a portable, medical instrument that is worn like a watch. The Empatica E4 contains sensors that record skin conductance and blood volume pulse via a light sensor (PPG). The watch has an internal memory, but can also be connected via Bluetooth to, for example, a smart phone to visualize data in real time. There are two Empatica E4 in the laboratory.

Polar H10

The Polar H10 is a consumer-oriented chest strap that is often used in sports to measure heart rate. The Polar H10 can also be used to record ECG from the heart, which provides information about both heart rate and heart rate variability. The laboratory has four Polar H10s in two different sizes.

Skin Conductance

Skin conductance is one of the most proven and reliable indicators for measuring arousal. Skin conductance can also tell you something about stress level because increased activation in the sympathetic nervous system (flight-fight response) increases sweating. The reverse is also true, i.e. a decrease or return to “baseline” indicates activity in the parasympathetic nervous system (the body’s “resting system”). Skin conductance usually needs to be paired with other data because the increased degree of activation itself can have many explanations.

Pulse

The heart’s working rate, the pulse, is correlated with physical activity level, but also says something about the mental state, where a higher pulse can indicate stress and cognitive load.

Heart rate variability, HRV

Heart rate variability is a measure of the average difference in time between heartbeats. Low heart rate variability is usually linked to activity in the sympathetic nervous system (stress), while higher variability indicates the parasympathetic system (recovery). It is possible to train HRV, which can lead to a better balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and thus also resistance to stress. Heart rate variability can be estimated via pulse (RR) and blood volume pulse (PPG), but the best accuracy is provided by ECG. Heart rate variability can be expressed as standard deviation in R-R.

ECG/EKG

Measurement of the heart's electronic activity over time. Can be used for detailed analysis of, for example, heart rate variability and pulse.

PPG photoplethysmogram

A type of sensor that is based on short light pulses. The body's blood vessels absorb the light signals differently depending on blood volume and oxygen saturation. A PPG sensor sends several light pulses per second, and by measuring how much of the light comes back, a graph of the blood volume pulse is obtained.

Pulse oximetry

A type of PPG sensor that measures the oxygen saturation of the blood. The sensor is usually placed on the finger or earlobe, diodes emit light in wavelengths that are absorbed differently depending on the degree of saturation of the blood.

Respiratory rate

There is a natural relationship between the body's activity level and respiratory rate, in such a way that the respiratory rate decreases at rest. This relationship can also be double-acting.

 

Contact