CAREER: CPS: Internet of Wearable E-Textiles for Telemedicine

这一职业项目旨在转化智能电子纺织品(e-纺织)技术，以满足远程医疗的需求。例如，全球约有1000万帕金森氏症患者。他们主要是老年患者，他们经历震颤、僵硬、行动缓慢以及行走和驾驶困难。尽管他们有残疾状况，但他们需要定期前往诊所进行循序渐进的检查和干预。该项目专门针对改善脑深部刺激(DBS)植入患者的治疗，因为专业神经学家发现DBS治疗非常复杂和耗时。对于医生来说，为每个患者个性化电刺激是非常重要的。这项拟议的研究在患者家中建立了一种智能基础设施，这样患者就可以在不去诊所的情况下独立进行医疗筛查，包括手指敲击、手翻转、脚趾敲击和踩脚等运动练习。此外，该系统建立在现代物联网技术的基础上，使神经科医生保持在循环中，以执行远程医疗干预。该项目将形成一个家庭内可穿戴的物联网枢纽(简称IoT-Hub)，由智能电子纺织品组成，如电子手套、电子袜子，以及用于数据分析、存储和与医院云服务器通信的配套计算设备。IoT Hub将拥有独特的功能，将医疗保健从医院转移到家庭：1)通过编织到电子手套和电子袜子中的传感器，以医疗级的精度测量运动症状；2)由平板电脑上运行的智能闭环算法驱动的患者友好界面；以及3)临床数据分析，供神经科医生根据数据驱动的知情决策进行DBS治疗。拟议的IoT-Hub弥合了IoT、医疗保健、智能纺织品和以患者为中心的设计领域之间的知识鸿沟-所有这些领域都需要跨学科的科学发现和创新。该项目将对越来越多患有帕金森氏症或其他神经疾病的老年患者产生潜在的深远影响。可穿戴式嵌入式系统的智能算法、电子纺织品设计和电路以及未识别的远程医疗数据将广泛传播给科学界。PI在URI开发了独特的物联网课程，涉及一系列以设计为中心的活动；针对企业家思维的物联网黑客马拉松；为大学生学习创新的个性化健康和健康解决方案的可感知物联网课程；以及让高中生参与动手工程活动的可穿戴工程计划。

This CAREER project aims to translate the smart electronic textile (e-textile) technologies to fill the need for telemedicine. For example, there are around 10 million individuals across the globe who live with Parkinson's disease. They are majorly elderly patients who experience tremors, rigidity, slowness of movement, and difficulties in walking and driving. Despite their disabling condition, they need to make periodic visits to clinics for progressive checks and interventions. The project specifically targets improving treatments for patients with deep brain stimulation (DBS) implants because specialized neurologists find DBS treatments very complex and time consuming. It is very important for the doctors to personalize the electrical stimulations for each and every patient. The proposed research establishes an intelligent infrastructure in patients' homes so that patients, without visiting clinics, could independently perform a medical screening consisting of movement exercises such as finger tapping, hand flipping, toe tapping, and foot stomping. Moreover, the system builds upon modern internet-of-things technologies to keep neurologists in the loop to execute telemedicine interventions. The project will result into an in-home, wearable internet-of-things hub (referred to as "IoT-Hub") consisting of smart e-textiles such as e-gloves, e-socks, and companion computing devices for data analytics, storage, and communications to the cloud servers of hospitals. IoT Hub will have unique features to translate the medical care from hospitals to homes: 1) the measurements of movement symptoms with a medical-grade precision through sensors woven into e-gloves and e-socks, 2) the patient-friendly interface driven by intelligent close-loop algorithms running on tablet computers, and 3) clinical data analytics for neurologists to make data-driven informed decision on DBS treatments. The proposed IoT-Hub closes the knowledge gap between the areas of IoT, healthcare, smart textiles, and patient-centered design - all of which require interdisciplinary scientific discoveries and innovations.This project will have a potentially profound impact on the growing number of elderly patients living with Parkinson's disease or other neurological conditions. Intelligent algorithms for wearable embedded systems, e-textile designs and circuits, and de-identified telemedicine data will be broadly disseminated to the scientific community. The PI has developed a unique IoT curriculum at URI that involves a series of design-centered activities; an IoT hack-a-thon for entrepreneurial thinking; and awearable IoT course for university students to learn innovating personalized health and wellness solutions; and wearable engineering program to engage high school students in hands-on engineering activities.