Printed hybrid flexible intelligence platform for medical and wellfare applications

The focus of the proposed project is a heterogenous integration platform based on a combination of silicon-IC and printed polymer/paper technologies, that supports wearable and intelligent wireless biomedical sensors. The wearable bio-medical sensor is a smart device that can be attached to a human body, consisting of bio-medical sensors and a wireless link, monitoring temperature, pressure or ECG and respiration. The approach is top-down oriented, going from clinical and system level specifications to te chnical realizations. Today, patient monitoring devices are often wired, at least from the sensor to the data recorder device that the patient wears. These wires can be removed by integrating heterogeneously sensors, a radio link, and a battery on a small piece of thick paper or polymer foil. This will significantly improve the quality of healthcare monitoring whether the patient stays in hospital or stays at home. The information will be collected by a station located in the room or in the hand-held devi ce, and this information sent to doctors or nurses via communication networks. Although devices like pacemakers are meant to be durable, many monitoring devices need to be refreshed at least every two days. Cost therefore must be low. This becomes possibl e with advanced ultra low-cost, ultra low power CMOS wireless links such as impulse radio, printed battery cells, and various low cost sensors. Typical monitoring devices could be for example, respiration monitoring, wound bandage monitoring, electrocardi ography, and electroencephalography. Functionality and performance of the integration platform will be validated in a test-bed infrastructure which has been established by industrial partners. In the initial stage technologies developed by academic and in dustrial partners in previous project