I-Corps Team: Transdermal alcohol sensor system for monitoring blood alcohol content

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The proposed technology aims to provide law enforcement and judiciary agencies the real time blood alcohol content data of the driving under influence offenders. It can be used as a blood alcohol content alert system by the user while they indulge themselves in social drinking. Drunk driving costs the United States $199 billion a year, and 50 to 75% of convicted drunk drivers continue to drink and drive on a suspended license. Every two minutes a person is injured in a drunk driving crash. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) 32,719 people died in traffic crashes in 2013 in the United States, including an estimated 10,076 people who died in drunk driving crashes, accounting for 31% of all traffic deaths that year. These adversaries can be significantly avoided by implementing the proposed technology to continuously monitor blood alcohol level in driving under the influence, driving while intoxicated offenders and preventing them from driving while intoxicated. the proposed technology aims to reduce the cost by an order of magnitude while providing immediate data with alert system to the respective agencies. The expected cost of the device will be less compared to other devices, and the monitoring fee can be significantly reduced because the data will be better calibrated, intuitive, and more user friendly, thereby minimizing the need for analyst. Further, the proposed system can integrate with the offenders' mobile phone for transmitting encrypted data to the server. This technology has the potential to revolutionize the wearable alcohol monitoring market and provide more user friendly support to law enforcement and judiciary agencies.This I-Corps team has developed a solid project plan to transition its technology for widespread commercial usage. For market assessment the team intends to interview social drinkers, law enforcement and judicial agencies. Additionally, the team will explore agencies involved with DUI/DWI offenders, for example flight medical examiners, and defense commands. This market research will provide this team with the insights of customer needs and product market fit along with the possible supply chain details. Meanwhile the team will continue to refine the fuel cell sensor fabrication, optimization and calibration to improve the sensitivity, improve the backend electronics based on the customer needs identified in the interviews, and build a minimal viable product for demonstration purposes. The proposed device will the designed in such a way that the readout of alcohol concentration will be displayed both on the watch and on the smart phone. The data transfer from the device to the smartphone will be achieved by blue tooth communication.