A Wearable Wireless System for Real-Time Monitoring of Chemical Toxicants

描述(由申请人提供)： 快速、可靠地检测空气中的化学毒物的能力对于健康风险评估、更好地了解基因-环境相互作用在人类疾病中的作用以及健康差异研究至关重要。目前对化学毒物的检测依赖于庞大而昂贵的光谱和色谱技术，这些技术需要大量的维护和操作员专业知识，这对于在多个地点连续监测各种化学物质是不现实的。人们已经提出和开发了许多便携式设备，但它们都有不同的局限性，如选择性低、灵敏度不足、范围有限和成本高。本项目汇集了亚利桑那州立大学(ASU)的化学传感器研究人员、亚利桑那大学(UA)的毒理学家、摩托罗拉的研发科学家和工程师以及亚利桑那州职业安全与健康部门(ADOSH)的现场测试专家共同努力，以构建、验证和测试功能强大的可穿戴传感系统。传感器技术建立在亚利桑那州立大学发明的新型微制造音叉阵列传感器平台和摩托罗拉开发的无线传感器技术的基础上。该项目将利用为亚利桑那州立大学和摩托罗拉团队正在进行的无线化学传感器合作研发工作收集的专业知识和资源。目标不仅是一种可穿戴的传感器系统，用于快速、准确和可靠地检测化学毒物，而且是一种价格实惠、易于升级和用户友好的产品，用于人口研究。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ability to quickly and reliably detect chemical toxicants in air is critically important for health risk assessment, for better understanding the role of gene-environment interactions in human diseases, and for health disparities research. Current detection of chemical toxicants relies on bulky and expensive spectroscopic and chromatographic techniques that require considerable maintenance and operator expertise, which are not practical for continuously monitoring various chemicals at multiple locations. Many portable devices have been proposed and developed, but they have different limitations ranging from low selectivity, insufficient sensitivity, limited scope and high costs. The present project brings together a joint effort involving chemical sensor researchers at Arizona State University (ASU), toxicologist at University of Arizona (UA), R&D scientists and engineers at Motorola and field testing experts at Arizona Division of Occupational Safety & Health (ADOSH) to build, validate and test a powerful wearable sensing system. The sensor technology is built upon a novel microfabricated tuning fork array sensor platform invented at ASU and wireless sensor technology developed at Motorola. The project will leverage on the expertise and resources gathered for an on-going collaborative R&D effort on wireless chemical sensors between the ASU and Motorola team. The goal is not only a wearable sensor system for quick, accurate and reliable detection of chemical toxicants, but also an affordable, easy-to-upgrade and user friendly product for population studies.