STTR Phase I: Non-Touch Infant Vital Sign Monitor

The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase-I project is to improve the detection of cessation of respiration with regard to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. It will result in a portable device for long-term monitoring of baby?s vital signs without requiring any sensor to be placed in touch with a baby. The proposed project promises to result in improved wellbeing of infants and young children in the context of a public/private partnership between a newly formed small business, a College of Engineering and a major Health Sciences Center. By making vital sign monitoring available to every family with a low-cost semiconductor system-on-chip, it can be a game-changing product for the baby monitor market. The proposed technology points to other novel uses such as a detection of epileptic seizures and subsequent research in predicting sleep apnea, Parkinson?s disease, as well as non-medical applications such as remote monitoring of search-and-rescue for earthquake, fire victims; border patrol; entrance security; and see-through-wall radar. A successful result will contribute to the growth of the company, U.S. and global sales, and the economic competitiveness of the U.S. The proposed project will develop and demonstrate an alternative to current monitors which require contact with the baby. It will integrate a novel on-chip solution into a low-cost portable device for long-term monitoring of vital signs without baby contact. The objective is to design a chip in a commercial complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) process to ensure low cost and low-power. The research will focus on radar non-contact measurement of physiological movements caused by breathing and heartbeat. Research will also be conducted on designing an antenna array to send a radio frequency signal, which will be reflected back from the human body and phase-modulated by physiological movements due to heartbeat and respiration. The result will be beam steering radar with a compact size and will eliminate the null detection point, so that detection of the vital sign activity will not be affected by either the position of the infant or the radar residue phase. The mass production cost of such a device will be significantly lower than currently employed systems.