I-Corps: Non-Contact Remote Breathing Analysis through Visualization of Thermal and CO2 Flow

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The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is in providing new medical diagnostic devices, software, and services for broad respiratory and pulmonary disease groups. Respiration monitoring is an important physiological measurement taken to determine the health of an individual. Due to the advantages of this project's remote sensing, the technology is expected to have a potential for commercial success for both in-clinic care and a home-based long term monitoring, contributing toward improved health outcomes. This I-Corps project is based on recent innovations in remote sensing for breathing activities. Conventional respiratory monitoring systems in a clinical setting require patients to wear devices, such as elastic bands around the chest or use invasive masks or tubes connected to the face, which cause patient discomfort and are ill-suited for long-term monitoring. Existing remote sensing techniques are not accurate enough due to the indirect nature of inferring breathing behaviors through chest movements or utilizing correlation functions. This project's system aims for both patient comfort and accurate and comprehensive analysis of patient breathing behaviors. It employs a specifically designed IR imaging camera and a novel software system to directly capture and visualize the human exhale carbon dioxide (CO2) activities in front of the face. This remote sensing helps promote patient comfort for a long-term measurement and it extracts clinically valuable information in a non-invasive way. Since it measures the breathing activities directly from the turbulent exhale behavior, it is accurate and comprehensive enough to obtain breathing rate, speed, strength, tidal volume, and nose/mouth distribution which could be crucial for the diagnosis of obstructive breathing, sleep apnea, and various pulmonary diseases.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.