I-Corps: A smart ring for finger motion analytics and healthcare applications

I-Corps：用于手指运动分析和医疗保健应用的智能戒指

• 批准号: 2333583
• 负责人: Mahanth Gowda
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: Pennsylvania State Univ University Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-01 至 2025-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2333583&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; smart; ring; finger; motion

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a smart ring with integrated sensors for applications in extended reality and smart healthcare. The proposed technology may be used to monitor patients’ health biometric data including heart rate, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, blood glucose, blood alcohol concentration and indoor location remotely. This may improve early detection of health issues, track and improve health and wellness, and reduce human resources devoted to the monitoring of patients. In addition, the proposed smart ring technology may be used to help deaf and hard of hearing individuals communicate with hearing individuals. The proposed technology is designed with an integrated sign language recognition (SLR) system. Currently, the population of deaf and hard of hearing individuals is about 10 million in the US and 466 million globally, however, an efficient communication tool does not exist. The proposed technology could serve an important need for the deaf and hard of hearing community.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a 3D finger motion tracking smart ring. The proposed technology is designed by integrating low-cost, off-the-shelf electronic components using system-on-a-chip (SoC) architecture into a flexible printed circuit board that can bend in the form factor of a ring. Inertial measurement unit (IMU) and photoplethysmography (PPG) sensors are embedded for enabling motion analytics such as sign language recognition and healthcare applications such as heart rate, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, blood alcohol concentration and blood glucose. The hardware is enclosed in a 3D-printed waterproof case that allows smooth contact with the skin. Overall, the form factor weighs about 2.5 g with a week of battery life for comfortable and long-term wearing including while sleeping and swimming. Results show the feasibility of tracking 24 degrees of freedom of finger motion using sparse rings placed on a few fingers. This is an unconstrained problem without well-formed equations because the sensors are not placed on every finger or joint. Deep learning techniques are utilized to learn the mapping between sensor data and finger motion that exploit correlations between motion of different fingers to solve the unconstrained problem.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.

I-Corps项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发具有集成传感器的智能环，用于扩展现实和智能医疗保健的应用。该技术可用于远程监测患者的健康生物特征数据，包括心率、血氧饱和度、血压、血糖、血酒精浓度和室内位置。这可以改善对健康问题的早期发现，跟踪和改善健康状况，并减少用于监测患者的人力资源。此外，提出的智能戒指技术可用于帮助聋人和重听人与听力正常的人进行交流。该技术设计了一个集成的手语识别（SLR）系统。目前，美国的失聪和重听人群约为1000万，全球约为4.66亿，然而，一种有效的沟通工具并不存在。这项提议的技术可以满足聋人和重听群体的重要需求。这个I-Corps项目是基于3D手指运动跟踪智能戒指的开发。该技术通过将低成本、现成的电子元件集成到可弯曲成环形的柔性印刷电路板中，采用系统级芯片（SoC）架构。嵌入式惯性测量单元（IMU）和光容积脉搏图（PPG）传感器可实现运动分析，如手语识别和医疗保健应用，如心率、氧饱和度、血压、血液酒精浓度和血糖。硬件被封装在一个3d打印的防水外壳中，可以与皮肤平滑接触。总的来说，这款平板电脑的重量约为2.5克，电池续航时间为一周，可以舒适地长期佩戴，包括睡觉和游泳。实验结果表明，利用少量手指上的稀疏环跟踪24个手指运动是可行的。这是一个没有良好形式方程的无约束问题，因为传感器不是放在每个手指或关节上。利用深度学习技术学习传感器数据与手指运动之间的映射关系，利用不同手指运动之间的相关性来解决无约束问题。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。