ICS Seminar: Prof. Chiang
Prof. Patrick Chiang
Oregon State University
Oct. 28th, 1:30pm, ACE 2.402
Wireless Sensors for the Non-Invasive Monitoring of Aging
Our goal is to develop a wearable sensor microsystem, capturing activity, indoor location, and critical vital signs, for assessing and monitoring independent living of the elderly. In 2009, more than 39.6 million Americans were over the age of 65 (5x more in China), and it is predicted that this number will more than double in the next 20-30 years. In-home monitoring technologies have a great potential to support independent living, by providing continuous critical health status information as well as early diagnosis of cognitive decline and subtle nutritional changes.
In this talk, I will describe the opportunities and challenges that lie in this interdisciplinary research area between sensing, computing, diagnosing, and ultimately, better health. From a circuit designer’s standpoint, I will describe recent experimental prototypes that may enable a future world using non-invasive wearable sensors: a) indoor location tracking of precise movement/walking for the early detection of cognitive decline; b) near-threshold, robust DSP parallel processor for biomedical sensor signal processing; c) synchronized multi-node wireless body-area networks powered by RF energy harvesting.
Finally, I will discuss recent collaborations with clinicians, such as nutrition specialists (Linus Pauling Institute at OSU) and gerontologists (Oregon Health and Science medical school), attempting to take these captured sensed signals and translate them into healthy aging.