| NSF Org: |
TI Translational Impacts |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | December 18, 2017 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | December 10, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1746660 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Henry Ahn
hahn@nsf.gov (703)292-7069 TI Translational Impacts TIP Directorate for Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships |
| Start Date: | January 1, 2018 |
| End Date: | December 31, 2018 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $225,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $225,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
3 E 3RD AVE STE 304 SAN MATEO CA US 94401-4279 (650)600-1885 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
156 2nd St Suite 100 San Francisco CA US 94105-3725 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | SBIR Phase I |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.084 |
ABSTRACT
The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I project is to achieve non-contact continuous blood pressure monitoring and address a critical need for personalized medicine for hypertension. For the first time, hypertensive individuals will have access to a comfortable, non-contact, continuous blood pressure monitoring device that allows for seamless blood pressure measurement without disturbing the user in any way. With 1 out of every 3 adults in the United States living with hypertension, The proposed innovation will meet an important need to monitor blood pressure continuously and noninvasively, thereby providing new insight into how one's blood pressure responds to medication, exercise, diet, and their actions. Longer term, the data collected by the team will yield unprecedented insight into short and long-term blood pressure rhythms and has the potential to revolutionize personalized medicine for hypertension. This technology is expected to empower people with the feedback that they need to understand what works for them as an individual to maintain their health.
The proposed project will lay the ground work for the development of a continuous-wear blood pressure monitoring device suitable for everyday use. Through an RF sensor that can detect arterial movement, the proposed technology can measure cardiovascular parameters for every heartbeat. To date, a prototype sensor has shown significant promise at providing accurate blood pressure measurements in a small sample. Beyond blood pressure information, the fundamental capability of the proposed technology is to measure arterial stiffness, a critical indicator of cardiovascular health. With the support of this NSF grant, the team is expected to develop its technology and ready it for commercialization. The goal for this project is to: (1) eliminate first-surface reflections and micro-motion artifacts related to RF sensing; (2) refine blood pressure algorithms and compare measurements against gold standard BP measurements in healthy, hypotensive, and hypertensive populations. The proposed technology could become an important scientific tool to aid the advancement of cardiovascular research, enabling researchers and clinicians alike to gain further understanding of cardiovascular-related health parameter.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
The NSF SBIR Phase I project titled "Enabling Cuffless Blood Pressure Monitoring with a Novel, Wearable RF-Based Sensor" had the goals of developing a radar-based sensor for the reliable capture of arterial pressure waveforms from the human body. The outcome from this project forms the groundwork for the development of continuous blood pressure monitoring devices suitable for daily use. Such devices will meet an important need to monitor blood pressure continuously and noninvasively, thereby providing valuable data into how blood pressure responds to medication and lifestyle choices. These insights will provide the necessary feedback to understanding and managing one's cardiovascular health.
Radar-based systems have been used previously to take cardiovascular measurements. Signals such as heartbeat and respiration can be captured through measurement of electromagnetic waves reflected from a target area of the body. With the advent of lower power radar chipsets and faster processors, it is now feasible to leverage radar in wearable applications. With the support of this Phase 1 award, we successfully validated that a radar system is suitable for detecting the arterial pulse pressure waveforms necessary to extract physiological metrics equivalent to arterial applanation tonometry.
Five major activities were carried out during the project period. First, an optimal radar system and operational frequency was identified through extensive simulation of its interaction with an arterial pulse waveform tissue model. Further simulations confirmed safety of the radar parameters for use on the human body. We then constructed a compact sensor module and developed a suite of data acquisition and processing tools to transform signals from the radar system into a pulse pressure waveform. Using this system, we identified multiple locations on the body where pulse pressure waveforms could be detected with the required fidelity. Finally, we validated that the pulse pressure signal generated by our sensor is comparable to that of a tonometer, the clinically-accepted noninvasive method for recording arterial pulse pressure waveforms.
The project outcomes were what we had proposed and successfully completed. With these outcomes, we plan to move forward towards a commercial embodiment of the technology and begin development of a wearable continuous blood pressure monitor. Longer term, we foresee our technology as an important scientific tool to aid the advancement of cardiovascular research, enabling researchers and clinicians alike to gain further understanding of cardiovascular-related health parameters.
Last Modified: 03/13/2019
Modified by: Oliver Shay
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