Milad Alizadeh-Meghrazi 1, Milad Lankarany 2
1 Myant Inc, Toronto, ON, Canada
2 Krembil Research Institute, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada
Abstract
Humans perceive the outside world by their sensory systems that detect and represent physical stimuli, e.g., visual, auditory, gustatory (taste), olfactory (smell) and somatosensory (touch, temperature, pain) systems. Thanks to recent technological advancements in neuroscience and biomedical engineering, different receptors of human’s sensory systems can be replicated by bio-sensors.
We have developed, in collaboration with Myant Inc, the leading company in advanced manufacturing of textile technology, a textile-based wearable platform for simultaneously sensing various electrophysiological signals including brain (EEG), heart (ECG) and muscle activities (EMG). In textile technology, a conductive yarn/fiber/textile can be woven in various types of wearables like underwear, bra, headband, shirt, etc. Our platform comprises an 8-channel multi-sensing unit for sensing EEG (4-channels), EMG (2-channels) and ECG (2-channels) signals. By integrating this multi-sensing unit with the textile-based sensors (mixture of carbon and polymer), we have developed a smart textile, namely, computing textile, technology that enables wireless transmission of data to a smart-phone. This technology has a tremendous implication in medical and healthcare applications, e.g., home care service, long-term diagnosis, and remote monitoring of physiological signals of patients.
Our technology establishes a foundation for Artificial Intelligence (AI) to take healthcare technology to the next level, i.e., continuous monitoring of patients physiological states. AI can be used to design and develop machine learning algorithms to capture, integrate, process and manage big data from a wide range of physiological signals from patients with different diseases/disabilities. As well, AI produces accurate data-based learning algorithms that extract and classify correlational patterns of physiological signals. This unique capability of AI will enable early detection of various types of diseases. Thus, the proposed smart textile technology will advance the state of the art of exploiting AI for healthcare applications.