Wearable sensors and large-scale energy storage research gets major NRF funding
23 April 2012
Prof Lian Yong leads research on wearable sensors.
NUS RESEARCH team led by Professor Lian Yong, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering has received the National Research Foundation (NRF) grant to carry out high impact research (8th Competitive Research Programme grant call). Working with researchers from NUS medical school, public health school and Fujitsu Laboratories, Professor Lian targets to design and develop tiny wearable sensors that can transmit patients' vital data to doctors automatically. Such wireless sensors would allow patients uninterrupted sleep as they need not be woken up periodically for their temperature and pulse rate to be taken.
Professor Lian said these sensors will be powered by energy generated from the human body. "These sensors will continuously collect vital parameters of temperature, cardiac rate and rhythm respiratory rate, oxygen saturation and blood pressure3 which will be sent to the Health Cloud through a mobile phone, where the data are stored and analysed," said Professor Lian.
The proposed system will be verified in both hospital and home. In future, with the proposed technology, the mobile phone can alert us to see a doctor before we fall sick, added Professor Lian who is the Provost's Chair Professor and Area Director of Integrated Circuits and Embedded Systems in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering. His team recently made the headlines when they came out with an ECG chip that can be worn as a plaster. The micro chip is now being marketed by ClearBridge VitalSigns Pte Ltd, of which Professor Lian is a co-founder.
Another team led by Assistant Professor Wang Qing, Department of Materials Science and Engineering, also received the NRF grant for their work on large scale energy storage. Development of batteries is currently the bottleneck in the large-scale deployment of stationary energy storage for smart grid and automotive energy storage for electric vehicles.
Dr Wang leads research on large scale energy storage.
His project, "Redox-flow Lithium Batteries as a New Concept and Implementable Solution for Large Scale Energy Storage", combines the advantage of great system flexibility of the Redox flow battery with the high energy density of the lithium ion batteries.
Advantages of "Redox" (a contraction of the terms "Reduction" and "Oxidation") flow cells include very high power output, fast recharge (by replacing spent electrolyte) and the use of non toxic materials.
Under the NRF Competitive Research Programme, each project gets up to $10m over three to five years.
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