SBIR Phase I: Enabling Cuffless Blood Pressure Monitoring with a Novel, Wearable RF-Based Sensor.

该小型企业创新研究（SBIR）I期项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是实现非接触式连续血压监测，并满足高血压个性化药物的迫切需求。高血压患者将首次获得舒适、非接触、连续的血压监测设备，可以在不以任何方式干扰用户的情况下进行无缝血压测量。在美国，每3个成年人中就有1个患有高血压，这项创新将满足连续无创监测血压的重要需求，从而为血压如何对药物、运动、饮食及其行为做出反应提供新的见解。从长远来看，该团队收集的数据将对短期和长期血压节律产生前所未有的洞察力，并有可能彻底改变高血压的个性化医疗。这项技术预计将使人们能够获得反馈，了解他们作为一个个体如何保持健康。拟议的项目将为开发适合日常使用的连续佩戴式血压监测设备奠定基础。通过可以检测动脉运动的RF传感器，所提出的技术可以测量每次心跳的心血管参数。到目前为止，原型传感器已经显示出在小样本中提供准确血压测量的重要前景。除了血压信息之外，所提出的技术的基本能力是测量动脉硬度，这是心血管健康的关键指标。在NSF资助的支持下，该团队有望开发其技术并为商业化做好准备。该项目的目标是：（1）消除与RF感知相关的第一表面反射和微动伪影;（2）改进血压算法，并将测量结果与健康、肥胖和高血压人群的金标准BP测量结果进行比较。这项技术可能成为帮助心血管研究进步的重要科学工具，使研究人员和临床医生能够进一步了解心血管相关的健康参数。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to achieve non-contact continuous blood pressure monitoring and address a critical need for personalized medicine for hypertension. For the first time, hypertensive individuals will have access to a comfortable, non-contact, continuous blood pressure monitoring device that allows for seamless blood pressure measurement without disturbing the user in any way. With 1 out of every 3 adults in the United States living with hypertension, The proposed innovation will meet an important need to monitor blood pressure continuously and noninvasively, thereby providing new insight into how one's blood pressure responds to medication, exercise, diet, and their actions. Longer term, the data collected by the team will yield unprecedented insight into short and long-term blood pressure rhythms and has the potential to revolutionize personalized medicine for hypertension. This technology is expected to empower people with the feedback that they need to understand what works for them as an individual to maintain their health.The proposed project will lay the ground work for the development of a continuous-wear blood pressure monitoring device suitable for everyday use. Through an RF sensor that can detect arterial movement, the proposed technology can measure cardiovascular parameters for every heartbeat. To date, a prototype sensor has shown significant promise at providing accurate blood pressure measurements in a small sample. Beyond blood pressure information, the fundamental capability of the proposed technology is to measure arterial stiffness, a critical indicator of cardiovascular health. With the support of this NSF grant, the team is expected to develop its technology and ready it for commercialization. The goal for this project is to: (1) eliminate first-surface reflections and micro-motion artifacts related to RF sensing; (2) refine blood pressure algorithms and compare measurements against gold standard BP measurements in healthy, hypotensive, and hypertensive populations. The proposed technology could become an important scientific tool to aid the advancement of cardiovascular research, enabling researchers and clinicians alike to gain further understanding of cardiovascular-related health parameter.