Radio frequency devices

Radio Frequency Sensing in Healthcare: Detection of Falls, Gait Abnormality and Vital Signs

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B9 L2 H1

In this talk, we represent recent advances of radio frequency (RF) sensing technology for healthcare, specifically in monitoring human activities inside homes, retirement facilities, and hospitals. Sensing technologies and data analytics are considered powerful tools in efficient indoor monitoring of human activities. Monitoring of activities of daily living (ADL) can identify falls, which are considered as the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries for people aged 65 and over. It can also detect variants in activity patterns and changes in routines and lifestyle as well as the state of physical, cognitive, and psychological health of the person. In addition to monitoring ADL, RF-based gesture recognition using hands and arms is shown to be an important contactless technology for Man-Machine-Interface (MMI). Adding to the indoor applications, RF-based vital sign monitoring has vast medical use, as respiration and heartbeats are essential diagnostic barometers for many health problems. More recently, RF sensors have also been proposed for gait analysis for rehabilitation and timely diagnosis of many neurological, orthopedic and medical conditions. Changes in gait patterns can also be precursors of falls. In this talk, we present successful examples in each of the above application areas and discuss pertinent open problems worthy of investigations.

Exploring the Potentials of EM Waves from Body-scale to Nano-communications for Healthcare and Next Generation Wireless Applications

Akram Alomainy, Reader, Antennas and Applied Electromagnetics, Queen Mary University of London

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KAUST

With the advent of commercial products, such as Apple iWatch and Samsung Galaxy Gear, body-centric communication has increasingly garnered the public attention and smoothly translated state-of-the-art research work into reality. However, challenges still remains and these are often fundamental physical hurdles that need to be further explored and investigated to come up with efficient and scalable solutions applicable to many fields and areas. This becomes an important research area when you look at the scale or rather the multiple scales it needs to work at from body-size or larger networks to the nano-scale where there have been lots of interest recently on how to get nano-devices inside tissues and even inside intelligent materials around us. The talk will present recent development in the area of antennas, RF devices and electromagnetic solutions for applications such as healthcare, biomedical engineering and next generation wireless communications. It will look at the challenges from theoretical, numerical and experimental prospective to ensure that proposed concepts and outcomes are of benefit not only to those domains but other beyond such as agricultural technology and smart home and cities.

Tuning in to magnetic ink

1 min read ·
A new ink containing iron oxide nanoparticles can be turned into fully printed and versatile components for cellular networks.