Wearable flexible wireless electronic systems for contactless patient diagnostics

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Low-cost wireless Internet-compatible technologies are becoming an integrated part of our life. People can retrieve information on andremotely control offices, houses, cars, household items. At the same time, wireless real-time remote diagnostics of human body is lagging behind. The market is dominated by expensive, energy demanding and rather bulky devices such as smart wrist watches. Many applications that can significantly improve Canadian health care system and the quality of our life, require lightweight, low-cost, disposable diagnostics products. To address this issue, we propose development of wearable disposable diagnostics systems for***contactless real-time diagnostics of human body parameters such as body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, humidity/moisture levels, deep tissue analysis, and more. These parameters would be retrieved wirelessly to avoid touching the body, which is particularly important for intensive care patients.***We propose such a system to consist of two main components:***1) disposable sensor arrays that would be fabricated on flexible plastic substrate and be attachable to human body in a BandAid sticker fashion and would be capable of wirelessly transmitting the data (passive sensor arrays would not require energy source whereas active arrays would require energy source supplied by solar cell/thin film battery source). These arrays could also be integrated into disposable health care products such as diapers, bandages etc., which will add value to them and hence will be highly beneficial to Canadian manufacturers of such products. We plan to establish partnerships to such manufacturers for commercialization of our research results.***2) wireless reader capable of reading the signal, conditioning it and transforming to digital form, and either storing it or transmitting it to external storage (smartphone, laptop, etc.).***Application areas for such systems include hospitals, emergency rooms, baby and elderly care institutions. They can also be used for self-diagnostics by sports professional and physically active individuals. We expect such products to be highly demanded due to aging yet staying physically active Canadian population.***Proposed research activities provide an excellent training opportunity for graduate students, being highly experimental and including various components of electrical engineering such as device design and simulation, system design, circuitry design, device integration and fabrication and testing. University of Waterloo Giga-to-Nanoelectronics fabrication facility is uniquely suitable and fully sufficient to carry out proposed activities.***Proposed research will form a base upon which a multitude of new health care products can be developed in collaboration with industrial partners in Canada and hence strongly benefit Canadian industry and society in general.