Search Results - trisha+andrew

This invention provides a nature-inspired, multilayer photothermal textile and personal heated wearables, such as clothing, comprising such textile for highly efficient thermoregulation and personal thermal management.

This invention provides a nature-inspired, multilayer photothermal textile and personal heated wearables, such as clothing, comprising such textile for highly efficient thermoregulation and personal thermal management.

This invention provides polymer-coated supercapacitors for energy storage applications.

Tracking eye movement is integral for constructing virtual reality headsets, and in the healthcare sector, eye movement tracking is useful for diagnosing sleep disorders. Current iterations of commercial eye trackers mainly rely on visually tracking the wearer’s retina using head-mounted cameras. This approach suffers from many analytical limitations, in addition to the fact that the resulting headsets are heavy, cumbersome, and constricting.

 

Aside from cameras, another method to track eye movement is electrooculography (EoG), in which the electric pulses created by the seven extraocular muscles are detected by a skin-mounted electrode. While EoG is the most sensitive and error-free approach to track eye motion, a fully-integrated and portable EoG headset with five electrode leads is not known.

 

Here, Professors Trisha Andrew and Deepak Ganesan create a lightweight garment that can record EoG signals and, therefore, track the eye motions of the wearer. The PIs decorate a lightweight molded-foam sleeping mask with dry electrodes, and integrate a power source and processing circuit onto the headband of the sleep mask. This creates a fully-integrated and sensitive eye tracking system that can be used to create next-generation VR headsets and track eye movement in patients suffering from sleep disorders.

While there are many smart textile-based garments on the market that perform continuous cardiac and respiratory monitoring, they generally use flexible electronic components that are integrated with the textiles. Such clothing tends to be form-fitting and thus uncomfortable to be able to get a good physiological signal. Additionally, the garments aren’t robust, as they’re difficult to wash and the electronic components are damaged over time.

 

This invention, by Professors Trisha Andrew and Deepak Ganesan, enables physiological sensing with loose clothing. Smart garments incorporates two types of all-textile pressure sensors: a triboelectric sensor based on the contact between two oppositely charged fabrics, and a first-of-its-kind all-textile static pressure sensor. The triboelectric sensor is used for sensing dynamic pressure, and the static pressure measures pressure between the body and a surface, such as a bed, chair, or arms resting at a person’s side. The signals from these two types of sensors, which are connected to the electronics via conductive threads, are processed through a novel signal processing pipeline that can fit in a clothing button. Measurables include posture, respiration, heartbeat, gait, sway, and balance.

 

Applications for these garments are wide ranging, including sleep sensing, health monitoring, and next-generation virtual reality (VR).