This presentation will provide an overview of the vision of the Biomedical Advanced Research & Development Authority's new Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures in the Department of Health and Human Services and their new focus on wearable technologies. We are funding multiple projects seeking to improve healthcare and health outcomes by enabling Americans to monitor their own health. We seek wearable technologies to enable a notification of impending disease before symptoms arise.

In order to make future implantable medical devices as minimally invasive and cost-effective as possible, devices will need to become smaller and easier to implant. This will require the development of alternative assembly technologies and materials. Reduction in the size of the power source, while still retaining the high level of reliability required, will be one critical element to reduce device size. New concepts to allow for miniature scale assembly of hermetic, biocompatible coin cells and thin film cells have been developed by leveraging traditional glass-to-metal and ceramic-to-metal seal technologies. Ceramic  device enclosures, which allow for more efficient energy transfer to the device from external power sources due to reduced eddy currents, have been developed to minimize recharge time or eliminate the need for a power source completely. In addition, biocompatible, hermetic conductive vias through ceramic substrates enable further size reduction of device feedthroughs and can act as active electrodes for sensing or therapy. Combined, these technologies can be used to produce sensing and stimulating implants that provide enhanced convenience for patients and physicians.

Accurate locating of specific points in an indoor setting is critical for applications, including robotic feedback control and non-intrusive structural integrity monitoring. Current optical and ultrasound approaches often suffer from insufficient accuracy, obstruction by other objects, and ambiguous identification. Alternatively, conventional radar-like radio frequency (RF) methods can suffer from problems such as multipath ambiguity, small time of flight, and limited item recognition. Attachment of a passive RF identification (RFID) tag can provide a unique marker by modulating the backscattering signal, but current systems struggle with large interference and noise, and thus have poor ranging accuracy. Here we show that a 1 GHz harmonic RFID system can provide a ranging resolution of less than 50 microns in air and less than 5 microns in water with a sampling rate of greater than 1 kHz. The fundamental limits on ranging precision in our system are traced to the phase noise of the RF source and the aperture jitter of the data converter. Due to the low signal loss of the RF band we choose, the small passive tag to be precisely tracked can be embedded in underwater objects as well as within building structures.

In the world of gas sensors that currently contend for Edge-based detection, incumbent technologies carry significant limitations with respect to integration, cost and power consumption. Sensor power consumption is a fundamental constraint for all portable sensing devices, particularly as the vision of energy harvesting and ubiquitous sensing at the Edge materialize. More recently, Carbon Nanotube sensors have evolved to being one of the most cost-effective options with greater packing density, higher sensitivity and selectivity, than most gas sensors, while consuming up to 3 orders of magnitude less power. This talk will discuss the inherent advantages of ultra-low power gas sensors and some of the applications that are being enabled as a result. From medical diagnostics to fitness monitors to environmental applications analyzing the quality of air, soil, water and food. CNT sensors are positioned to revolutionize our automated sense of smell and taste.

This talk will focus on the information that flexible tactile sensors can provide and the process for integrating them into consumer products. Several applications examples ranging from prevention of occlusion in insulin delivery lines to the measurement of dynamic automobile tire footprints will be presented along with a live demonstration of the technology.

The NNI’s Nanotechnology for Sensors and Sensors for Nanotechnology Signature Initiative (Sensors NSI) coordinates efforts and stimulates existing and emerging projects across federal agencies to explore the use of nanotechnology for the development and commercialization of sensors. This presentation will provide an update regarding current and planned activities of the Sensors NSI, with specific focus on needs, funding opportunities, and recent activities related to wearable and implantable sensors. The NNI is a U.S. Government research and development initiative involving 20 departments and independent agencies working together toward the shared vision of “a future in which the ability to understand and control matter at the nanoscale leads to a revolution in technology and industry that benefits society.”

ANSI enhances both the global competitiveness of U.S. business and the U.S. quality of life by promoting and facilitating voluntary consensus standards and conformity assessment systems, and safeguarding their integrity. One of the great strengths of the U.S. approach to standards and conformance is its “public-private partnership.” This presentation will provide an overview of this partnership, the U.S. standards process and how the Institute bridges the gap between industry and government and enables information exchange and access among standards developing organizations and public-sector leaders, agencies, and legislators.

We present the fabrication and characterization of sputtered SnO2/NiO n-p heterojunctions thin films and their response to Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) at sub-ppm concentrations. In optimal processing conditions, the response of the films to VOCs can be greatly increased and its dependence on temperature, typically described in the context of a Diffusion-Reaction model, altered. In addition, we show that p-type NiO layers of given thickness can trigger a reversal in the response pattern of ultra-thin n-type SnO2 underlayers.

MEMS sensors have become the heart of many consumer electronic devices like smartphones and wearables. Their use in adjacent markets like the industrial market has not yet reached its full potential as each application has different requirements in terms of accuracy, power consumption, stability, memory and latency, resulting in varying needs for fused sensor data. Applications like predictive maintenance require constant adaptation and a scalable solution.
In his talk, Francois Beauchaud, Principal Engineer Business Development at Bosch Sensortec, will introduce solutions at different complexity levels of sensor related software such as fusion, user features and deployment of modern edge AI techniques, to provide a stage to the silent stars within our daily devices.

This presentation describes the architecture choices and design techniques that have been proven to enable deeply embedded sensor systems to operate for a lifetime from a single non-replaceable or rechargeable primary battery source.  The solution discussed is usable as a template to implement permanently-powered fitness, monitoring, portable health care and wearable devices.  A practical step-by-step series of examples build a complete ultra-low power cost-sensitive microcontroller-based embedded system.  E xactly where at a system level power is consumed and how to minimize is it the focus of the presentation.