CAREER: CSR Ultra Low Power Architectures for Wearable Computing

可穿戴健康监测系统为改善我们的生活提供了巨大的潜力，但在成为现实之前，必须清除一些障碍。支持这种技术的处理器和架构需要大量能源，需要相当大的电池。这项职业研究的最终目标是创建不需要电池并且可以依赖能量收集技术的可编程架构。为了实现这一目标，我们寻求将处理单元的功耗降低两个数量级以上。这种功率降低是通过新颖的变革性方法来实现的，以组成和配置可编程、超低功耗、细粒度的决策架构。研究了与信号处理紧密耦合的新算法，以降低通信块中的功率。研究采用粒度决策架构激活和停用传感器的方法，试图进一步降低功耗。这些方法通过两个临床案例研究得到验证和改进。该项目有可能极大地提高健康监测实践和医学研究的质量，使许多目前不可行的应用程序得以实现。对医疗保健监控应用不断增长的需求要求学生、工程师和医疗保健专业人员设计、开发、部署和操作可穿戴系统。该项目提供了一个多学科平台，以实现开发可穿戴计算机的教育目标，涉及高中生和教师以及本科生和研究生。外展计划通过短期课程和讲座向当地本科生社团(SWE、荣誉和IEEE)、K-12学生、医疗保健专业人员和当地行业提供。

Wearable health monitoring systems offer tremendous potential to improve our lives, yet a number of hurdles must be cleared before they become a reality. The processors and architectures that enable this technology demand a large amount of energy, requiring sizable batteries. The ultimate objective of this CAREER research is to create programmable architectures which require no battery and can rely on energy harvesting techniques. To achieve this objective, we seek to reduce power consumption of the processing units by more than two orders of magnitude. This power reduction is accomplished through novel, transformative methodologies to compose and configure programmable, ultra low power, granular decision-making architectures. New algorithms, tightly coupled with signal processing for power reduction in communication blocks are investigated. Research methods to activate and deactivate sensors with the granular decision making architecture attempts to further reduce the power consumption. The methodologies are validated and refined using two clinical case studies.This project has the potential to dramatically improve the quality of health monitoring practice and medical research, empowering numerous applications that are not currently feasible. Growing demand for health care monitoring applications requires students, engineers and health care professionals to design, develop, deploy and operate wearable systems. This project provides a multidisciplinary platform to realize the educational objectives of developing wearable computers, involving high school students and teachers as well as undergraduate and graduate students. Outreach programs are offered through short courses and lectures to local undergraduate societies (SWE, Honors and IEEE), K-12 students, health-care professionals, and local industries.