Award Abstract # 2139724
EAGER: Towards a multimodal smart textile medical monitoring system for Neonatal ICUs

NSF Org: IIS
Division of Information & Intelligent Systems
Recipient: UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLAND
Initial Amendment Date: July 26, 2021
Latest Amendment Date: March 29, 2024
Award Number: 2139724
Award Instrument: Standard Grant
Program Manager: Wendy Nilsen
wnilsen@nsf.gov
 (703)292-2568
IIS
 Division of Information & Intelligent Systems
CSE
 Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering
Start Date: October 1, 2021
End Date: September 30, 2024 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $299,998.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $331,998.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2021 = $299,998.00
FY 2022 = $16,000.00

FY 2024 = $16,000.00
History of Investigator:
  • Kunal Mankodiya (Principal Investigator)
    kunalm@uri.edu
  • Krishna Kumar Venkatasubramanian (Co-Principal Investigator)
  • Yalda Shahriari (Co-Principal Investigator)
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: University of Rhode Island
75 LOWER COLLEGE RD RM 103
KINGSTON
RI  US  02881-1974
(401)874-2635
Sponsor Congressional District: 02
Primary Place of Performance: University of Rhode Island
70 Lower College Rd
Kingston
RI  US  02881-1967
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:
02
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): CJDNG9D14MW7
Parent UEI: NSA8T7PLC9K3
NSF Program(s): Smart and Connected Health
Primary Program Source: 01002223DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01002425DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT

01002122DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 7916, 8018, 9150, 9251
Program Element Code(s): 801800
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.070

ABSTRACT

The rate of premature babies is rising in the US affecting 78 per 1000 live births admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) yearly. Due to low birth weight and underdeveloped body systems, premature babies are at a high risk of experiencing both short-term and long-term health issues. However, to date, NICUs still use gel-based sticky electrodes glued to the fragile, underdeveloped skin of premature babies. Studies have reported that these electrodes could cause skin harm such as rashes, irritation, breakdown, and stripping. Moreover, these electrodes are connected using long wires that make the critical care for nurses inconvenient, tedious, and time consuming. Drying sticky electrodes often lead to a loose connection with the skin and ultimately compromise the quality of medical monitoring. Because of long wires, parents find it difficult to provide skin-to-skin/kangaroo care to their babies while in NICU. The central objective of this EAGER proposal is to design and test a novel smart e-textile system, a chest belt that can enhance medical monitoring practices in NICU. The proposal synergizes the team?s expertise in areas of smart textile, physiological monitoring, biosignal processing, and human-centered technology design to address critical need for smart, safe, and connected monitoring systems in NICUs. In addition to the scientific impacts of this EAGER, the proposed work will advance national health by addressing multiple existing gaps in NICUs. The educational and outreach plans will provide training opportunities for women and under-represented minorities and will also develop a K-12 curriculum.

The overarching goal of the project is to design and test a new NICU-centered wireless medical monitoring technology that is designed from biocompatible smart textile materials requiring no adhesive gel. Aim 1 will focus on NICU centered design and development of smart textile-based medical monitoring systems. Aim 2 will focus on characterization and evaluation of the proposed smart e-textile. The project will start with an ethnographic study of the NICU, focus groups involving NICU nurses, and interviews of parents of babies in the NICU to understand the challenges associated with providing care to premature babies. This will lead to the development of a novel functional prototype of a wireless smart textile technology that can offer reliable monitoring of medical signals with improved comfort. The project includes a feasibility study to measure the performance and usability of the proposed smart textile on healthy adults and healthy infants. The study will enable us to develop signal analysis methods for signal quality index and noise characterization that are critical to address the issue of false alarms in NICU caused by poor skin-electrode contacts.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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(Showing: 1 - 10 of 11)
Al_Rumon, Md Abdullah and Ravichandran, Vignesh and Veeturi, Suparna and Owens, Jim and Kumar, Deepesh and Solanki, Dhaval and Mankodiya, Kunal "ElboSense: A Novel Capacitive Strain Sensor for Textile-Based Elbow Movement Monitoring" , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1109/BSN58485.2023.10433120 Citation Details
Al Rumon, Md Abdullah and Suparna, Veeturi and Seckin, Mehmet and Solanki, Dhaval and Mankodiya, Kunal "Nisshash: Design of An IoT-based Smart T-Shirt for Guided Breathing Exercises" , 2023 https://doi.org/10.1109/SMARTCOMP58114.2023.00019 Citation Details
Altekreeti, Afnan and Roberts, Michaela and Convey, Dan and Leighton, Sarah and Setear, Madeline and Cay, Gozde and Solanki, Dhaval and Mankodiya, Kunal "NAPNEA: A Cost Effective Neonatal Apnea Detection System" 2021 IEEE/ACM Conference on Connected Health: Applications, Systems and Engineering Technologies (CHASE) , 2021 https://doi.org/10.1109/CHASE52844.2021.00022 Citation Details
Cay, Gozde and Ravichandran, Vignesh and Saikia, Manob Jyoti and Hoffman, Laurie and Laptook, Abbot and Padbury, James and Salisbury, Amy L. and Gitelson-Kahn, Anna and Venkatasubramanian, Krishna and Shahriari, Yalda and Mankodiya, Kunal "An E-Textile Respiration Sensing System for NICU Monitoring: Design and Validation" Journal of Signal Processing Systems , v.94 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11265-021-01669-9 Citation Details
Cay, Gozde and Solanki, Dhaval and Al_Rumon, Md Abdullah and Ravichandran, Vignesh and Fapohunda, Kofoworola Omotolani and Mankodiya, Kunal "SolunumWear: A smart textile system for dynamic respiration monitoring across various postures" iScience , v.27 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2024.110223 Citation Details
Cay, Gozde and Solanki, Dhaval and Ravichandran, Vignesh and Hoffman, Laurie and Laptook, Abbot and Padbury, James and Salisbury, Amy L. and Mankodiya, Kunal "Baby-Guard: An IoT-based Neonatal Monitoring System Integrated with Smart Textiles" 2021 IEEE International Conference on Smart Computing (SMARTCOMP) , 2021 https://doi.org/10.1109/SMARTCOMP52413.2021.00038 Citation Details
Cay, Gozde and Solanki, Dhaval and Rumon, Md Abdullah and Ravichandran, Vignesh and Hoffman, Laurie and Laptook, Abbot and Padbury, James and Salisbury, Amy L. and Mankodiya, Kunal "NeoWear: An IoT-connected e-textile wearable for neonatal medical monitoring" Pervasive and Mobile Computing , v.86 , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmcj.2022.101679 Citation Details
Ravichandran, Vignesh and Ciesielska-Wrobel, Izabela and Rumon, Md Abdullah and Solanki, Dhaval and Mankodiya, Kunal "Characterizing the Impedance Properties of Dry E-Textile Electrodes Based on Contact Force and Perspiration" Biosensors , v.13 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.3390/bios13070728 Citation Details
Rumon, Md Abdullah and Cay, Gozde and Ravichandran, Vignesh and Altekreeti, Afnan and Gitelson-Kahn, Anna and Constant, Nicholas and Solanki, Dhaval and Mankodiya, Kunal "Textile Knitted Stretch Sensors for Wearable Health Monitoring: Design and Performance Evaluation" Biosensors , v.13 , 2023 https://doi.org/10.3390/bios13010034 Citation Details
Solanki, Dhaval and Cay, Gozde and Al_Rumon, Md Abdullah and Ravichandran, Vignesh and Mankodiya, Kunal "A Step Towards Design and Validation of a Wearable Multi-Sensory Smart-Textile System for Respiration Monitoring" , 2022 https://doi.org/10.1109/SENSORS52175.2022.9967050 Citation Details
Venkatasubramanian, Krishna and Ranalli, Tina-Marie and Kirupaharan, Priyankan and Solanki, Dhaval and Mankodiya, Kunal "Understanding the Challenges Nurses Encounter with Monitoring Technologies in a NICU" International Journal of HumanComputer Interaction , v.40 , 2024 https://doi.org/10.1080/10447318.2023.2278297 Citation Details
(Showing: 1 - 10 of 11)

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.

This NSF-funded EAGER SCH project focused on developing a multimodal smart textile medical monitoring system to enhance care in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs). The research aimed to address critical challenges faced by nurses and parents in NICUs, including cumbersome medical monitoring systems and barriers to parent-infant bonding during Kangaroo care. By leveraging cutting-edge e-textile technology, the project sought to create skin-friendly, wireless wearable devices capable of monitoring vital signs like heart rate (HR) and respiration rate (RR) while reducing interference from traditional adhesive-based systems.

The project began with an ethnographic study to understand the complexities of NICU workflows and the limitations of existing monitoring technologies. Researchers conducted semi-structured interviews with NICU nurses and parents to capture their experiences and expectations. The findings revealed that current systems often hinder nurses’ efficiency and impede parent-infant bonding. Nurses expressed a need for improved control over alarms, integrated interfaces for monitoring devices, and innovations that minimize physical and psychological barriers in caregiving. These insights formed the foundation for designing a smart e-textile chest belt aimed at addressing these pain points while maintaining the quality of the medical monitoring.

A major milestone of the project was the development of a soft, wireless e-textile belt. This innovative device incorporated embroidered sensors using biocompatible materials to monitor HR, RR, and skin-electrode impedance in real time. By eliminating the need for adhesive electrodes, the belt addressed common issues such as infant skin irritation and discomfort. The embroidered sensors were integrated into the belt using technical embroidery techniques, which ensured durability and functionality. In addition, the belt featured a wearable computing device for on-body intelligence, capable of processing and transmitting medical signals wirelessly. This reduced noise, minimized false alarms, and provided high signal accuracy. The system also included on-body LED indicators to allow nurses to monitor vital signs at a glance.

Extensive testing and validation of the smart belt were conducted to ensure its reliability in real-world conditions. A study involving 10 healthy adult participants was performed to evaluate the performance of the textile-based electrodes under various motion-induced conditions. Participants were asked to engage in 16 distinct activities, including reclining, sitting, walking, and running, simulating a wide range of real-life movements. The study assessed key metrics such as heart rate (HR) detection accuracy, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), and resistance to motion artifacts. Results showed that the textile electrodes achieved an HR detection accuracy of approximately 99% across all tasks. The SNR for the textile electrodes averaged 15.8 dB, closely matching the 17.3 dB achieved by traditional adhesive electrodes in low-to-moderate motion scenarios. These findings demonstrated that the textile-based system could reliably monitor vital signs during everyday activities, offering a practical and comfortable alternative to adhesive electrodes, which often cause skin irritation and discomfort during extended use.

The project’s outcomes extended beyond technical advancements to broader societal impacts. The smart e-textile system improved NICU workflows by reducing nurses’ burden and facilitating parent-infant interactions during bonding activities. The wireless, adhesive-free design provided a more comfortable and less intrusive experience for infants and families, addressing a significant gap in neonatal care. The research also contributed to the field of wearable technology by demonstrating the feasibility of textile-based electrodes for continuous health monitoring. The findings highlighted the potential of these systems to replace traditional sticky electrodes, which are prone to skin irritation and discomfort, especially in long-term use.

Another significant achievement of the project was its impact on education and workforce development. The research team engaged graduate and undergraduate students, offering them hands-on experience in cutting-edge e-textile technology. Students participated in various aspects of the project, including biosignal processing, sensor design, and system integration. Their contributions led to numerous publications in high-impact journals and presentations at international conferences. The project also facilitated outreach activities, including STEM programs for K-12 students and a summer hackathon, inspiring the next generation of researchers and innovators.

The project’s findings have been widely disseminated through academic publications, conference presentations, and community engagement. Key research papers detailed the development and evaluation of the e-textile chest belt, biosignal acquisition methods, and innovations in neonatal monitoring. 

Looking ahead, this project’s success paves the way for broader adoption of smart textiles in healthcare, with future efforts focusing on refining the e-textile system for diverse NICU settings and other clinical applications. By addressing NICU challenges and advancing wearable technology, the project has laid a foundation for improving patient outcomes, enhancing parent-infant bonding, and transforming neonatal care, offering a pathway for future smart, patient-centered healthcare solutions.

 


Last Modified: 01/24/2025
Modified by: Kunal Mankodiya

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