Grant: Strategic Projects - Group

Traditionally, healthcare has focused on short-term treatment of life threatening problems; reactive rather than proactive health management. However, thanks to numerous studies on the provision of healthcare budgets, we know that it would be much more efficient, cost effective and safer for patients, if we concentrated on prevention, early intervention and screening. To this end, we are developing a continuous wearable vital signs monitor that is now possible thanks to advances in materials science and microelectronics. Such systems collect and analyze in situ medical data, like electrocardiograms (ECGs), heart rate, respiration rate and blood pressure in order to detect dangerous anomalies. Wide deployment of these devices could lead to radical improvements in health for individuals without any discomfort or significant additional cost to them. However, given the high computing needs of such battery powered systems, a trade-off must be made between miniaturization and device lifetime. Current devices operate only a couple of days, which affects the usability significantly. We propose therefore to harvest the energy dissipated by the human bearer to stretch the lifetime of the device. In fact, a human is a significant source of power, both in the form of heat and movement, which can be a natural power source for wearable health monitoring devices. If such an energy reclamation system is used, the lifetime of wearable devices would be theoretically unlimited. Furthermore, another significant problem would be resolved - environmental impact of battery waste.