Inkjet-printed Respiratory Rate Wearable Sensors for Infants: Towards Remote Monitoring Solutions for Low-setting Villages and Refugee Camps

Funder:

Royal Academy of Engineering [Newton Fund]

Coventry University Team:

Professor Dingchang Zheng

Duration: 

1^st April 2018 to 30^st Oct 2020

Total Value:

£97,867.30 [50% recovery]

Collaborators:

German Jordanian University

Therapy Audit Ltd

Atlas Medical-Jordan

Project Overview

The monitoring of infants respiratory rate can contribute to the identification of several health problems and life threats.  There is an increasing need for remote, low-cost, reliable and comfortable respiratory rate  that provide physicians with accurate newborn readings.

Project Objectives

The development of cheap, accurate, and industry friendly wearble sensor, which will integrated with remote monitoring of newborns’ respiratory rate.

Impact Statement

1. The project further enhances the existing collaboration between the research groups from GJU and CU, and establishes new collaboration on research and innovation between research organisations from the UK and Jordan, across the fields of medical technology development, tele-monitoring, and medical device manufacturing.

2. Internationalisation and global research impact are key CU priorities. The establishment of a sustainable research and innovation partnership between CU and GJU and industrial partners will provide a robust platform for extending collaborative research across a wide range of areas of medical technology development in a low/middle income setting.

3. The collaboration contributes to capacity building within the wider research and innovation landscape in Jordan by sharing scientific knowledge and facilitating the development of international medical engineering research partnerships. By developing an innovative medical device and solutions, it would help the Jordanian partners to play a key role in the development of novel and affordable medical devices in resource-poor settings, which encourages economic development and improves the social welfare system in Jordan.

Outputs

3 journal articles to date:

1. Al-Halhouli A, Al-Ghussain L, Bouri  S, Habash F, Liu H, Zheng D. Clinical evaluation of stretchable and wearable inkjet-printed strain gauge sensor for respiratory rate monitoring at different body postures. Appl Sci 2020; doi.org/10.3390/app10020480.
2. Al-Halhouli A, Al-Ghussain L, Bouri  S, Liu H, Zheng D. Clinical evaluation of stretchable and wearable inkjet-printed strain gauge sensor for respiratory rate monitoring at different measurements locations. J Clin Monit Comput 2020; 10.1007/s10877-020-00481-3.
3. Al-Halhouli A, Al-Ghussain L, El Bouri S, Liu H, Zheng D. Fabrication and Evaluation of a Novel Non-Invasive Stretchable and Wearable Respiratory Rate Sensor Based on Silver Nanoparticles Using Inkjet Printing Technology. Polymers (Basel). 2019; 11(9):1518. doi: 10.3390/polym11091518.

Media Coverage

• wearabletechnologyinsights.com/articles/17090/wearable-to-detect-infant-breathing-problems
• mobihealthnews.com/content/experts-uk-and-jordan-aim-develop-device-enable-wireless-monitoring-respiratory-rate
• anglia.ac.uk/news/funding-for-tech-to-detect-infant-breathing-problems

Selected by RAE as a case study.