CRII: SCH: Compact and Affordable, Non-intrusive mmWave and IoT enabled skin monitors - A Synergy for Chronic Skin Wound Evaluation and Prognosis

由烧伤、糖尿病、溃疡和其他医疗条件引起的慢性皮肤伤口可能会压倒皮肤的再生能力，导致持续感染，甚至在严重情况下截肢。在美国，每年有超过1000万慢性伤口患者接受治疗，估计每年的治疗费用超过400亿美元。慢性皮肤伤口的准确诊断，特别是在早期阶段，可以提供有效和有针对性的治疗，最终减少患者的痛苦。目前的烧伤伤口诊断和预后仅限于医生的视觉检查，并且患者在身体上需要在医疗中心接受昂贵的伤口成像方法或反复移除绷带以进行检查的痛苦过程。即使在健康方面取得了最新进展，智能绷带也只能帮助药物释放，不能提供实时诊断或监测。这项拟议的研究旨在通过开发转换成像和伤口监测方法来克服与现有烧伤伤口分析相关的障碍，这些方法可以很容易地与现有的智能绷带集成，以提供伤口状态的实时信息，而不会影响他们的日常生活。该项目还将促进快速发展的生物医学无线工程领域的劳动力发展。生物传感和物联网技术的新学位和新课程将被用来促进STEM推广计划并协调推广活动。后者的目的是从当地的迈阿密戴德县和布劳沃德县招募更多的本科生和K-12学生，接受无线工程培训。我们的签名推广计划的例子包括车轮上的工程师，工程博览会，ENLACE（从事拉丁裔社区教育），和迈阿密PREP（积极的青年准备）programmes.Accurate诊断和预后的皮肤伤口治疗通常需要测量的伤口面积，最大伤口深度，伤口渗出液的化学成分，和受影响的组织类型。此外，用于非侵入式诊断的传感器需要克服以下挑战，即1）绷带提供的衰减，2）在采用射频（RF）传感器时遵守监管要求，3）避免电池供电的电子设备，以及4）跨人口统计的准确诊断。拟议开发一种非侵入性的，负担得起的，无线实时伤口评估设备，可以很容易地集成到智能绷带是变革性的，因为它将生物医学工程，网络工程和电磁学的跨学科研究领域统一到一个单一的目标。具体而言，PI将与生物医学研究人员密切合作，1）开发毫米波传感系统，通过电阻抗光谱法，计算皮肤阻抗随伤口深度变化的变化，以约0.1 mm的精度估计皮肤伤口深度，以及2）采用低功率低成本协议来实现基于IoT的无线连接，以传输使用集成电气、电子和通信技术获得的重要伤口愈合细节，电化学和RF毫米波传感器，采用简化的SWAP-C封装。该研究能力有望为皮肤烧伤、溃疡和其他慢性皮肤创伤的远程评估带来革命性的医学成像工具，通过实现安全、准确和自主的烧伤监测系统造福全球社会。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Chronic skin wounds resulting from burns, diabetes, ulcers, and other medical conditions can overwhelm the skin's regenerative capabilities, leading to persistent infections and even amputations in severe cases. Over 10 million patients with chronic wounds are treated yearly in the United States, with an estimated cost of more than US $ 40 billion in annual spending for treatment. Accurate diagnosis of chronic skin wounds, particularly in the early stage, can provide efficient and targeted treatment, ultimately reducing patient suffering. Current burn wound diagnosis and prognosis are limited to visual inspection by the physician and patients are physically required to be in the medical center to undergo expensive wound imaging approaches or the excruciating process of repeated bandage removals for inspection. Even with the latest advances in health, smart bandages can only aid in drug releases and do not provide real-time diagnosis nor monitoring. This proposed research aims to overcome the obstacles associated with existing burn wound profiling by developing transformational imaging and wound monitoring approaches that can be readily integrated with existing smart bandages to provide real-time information of the wound state without affecting their daily routine. This project will also foster workforce development in the rapidly growing area of bio-medical wireless engineering. New degrees and new curricula in biosensing and IoT technologies will be leveraged to promote STEM outreach programs and coordinate outreach activities. The latter will be aimed at recruiting larger cohorts of undergraduates and K-12 students from the local Miami-Dade and Broward counties to be trained in wireless engineering. Examples of our signature outreach programs to be leveraged include Engineers on Wheels, Engineering Expo, ENLACE (Engaging Latino Communities for Education), and the Miami PREP (Positive Youth Preparedness) programs.Accurate diagnosis and prognosis of a skin wound treatment commonly require the measurement of the wound area, maximal wound depth, the chemical composition of wound exudate, and type of tissue affected. In addition, sensors for non-intrusive diagnosis need to overcome the following challenges, namely 1) attenuation provided by bandages, 2) adherence to regulatory requirements while employing radio frequency (RF) sensors, 3) avoiding battery-powered electronics, and 4) accurate diagnosis across demographics. The proposed development of a non-intrusive, affordable, wireless real-time wound assessment device that can be easily integrated to a smart bandage is transformative as it unites the interdisciplinary research areas of biomedical engineering, network engineering, and electromagnetism towards a single goal. Specifically, the PI will be working closely with bio-medical researchers towards the, 1) Development of mmWave sensing system to estimate skin wound depth with ~0.1 mm accuracy, through electrical impedance spectroscopy, by computing the variation of the skin impedance as the wound depth varies, and 2) Realization of IoT-based wireless connectivity employing low-power low-cost protocol to transfer vital wound healing details obtained using integrated electrical, electrochemical and RF mmWave sensors, in a reduced SWAP-C package. The proposed research capabilities have the potential to revolutionize medical imaging tools for remote assessment of skin burn injuries, ulcers, and other chronic skin wounds, benefiting the global society by realizing a safe, accurate, and self-reliant burn-wound monitoring system.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.