Notes from the Phoenix IEEE lab, 2009/03/08
Our categories of work:
- Improving the sensors and amplifier/filter boards
- Investigating the Chen patent
- Building a prototype microcontroller/DAQ board
- Reducing the cost of the $200 Home ABPM kit to $100
- Investigating optoelectronic sensors
Recent activities:
Between
Christmas break (mid-December to late January) and the water pipes
breaking in the building (most of February), we have had almost no time
in the lab for the past two and a half months. We've been using
temporary space such as the lounge in the EE building and a classroom
in the Mayo building that Dr. Halber and Dr. Cornelissen were able to
arrange for us. The access to the lab seems to have stabilized
now, and we've moved all our equipment back into the locker.
Erik
programmed the TI MSP430 microcontroller to act as a timer for the
Omron wrist monitor. This is the first version of the code, and
uses simple busy-wait loops for timing. It's currently triggering
the monitor every 38 minutes or so, and the first set of full batteries
lasted a little over 3 days, as predicted. I've been wearing the
monitor for about 5 days now, collecting the data. Germaine did
an initial analysis on the first couple of days of data, which raises
more questions than answers at that early stage.
Steven and
William are designing a surface-mount miniaturized version of the
analog timer, and I'm ordering parts and tools so they can build one.
Jason has installed dual-boot "Puppy Linux" and MPLAB on his laptop, for programming PIC microprocessors.
Active tasks:
Erik is looking into how to use the timers built into the TI microcontroller for better accuracy and reduced power consumption.
Chase is summarizing some of
the commercial product technology he's been reading about, considering
buying another NI DAQ device, and looking into whether we should get a
second piezoelectric film kit.
I
am working with Germaine to design more statistical tests to determine
if the wrist monitor can really produce useful Sphygmochrons.
Steven
and I are looking at details of how to add a buzzer to the digital
timers, to provide a warning a few seconds ahead of a reading being
taken (the wearer needs to stop moving and prevent the monitor from
being bumped while the reading is in progress, and the current monitor
doesn't give such a warning because it wasn't designed to be triggered
while the wearer is not expecting it).
Dr. Holte is looking into how we can get access to the campus wireless network or the EE/CS wireless network.
I will talk to the coordination team about doing some recruiting to get a few more people involved.
I will be contacting Wade Peterson to recover lost project information from the past.
Steven is making some project managment notes.
Steven is looking at Wade's schematic in the hopes of being able to describe the details or design changes to it.
Vince
is investigating where we can get some optoelectronic sensors to start
playing with, and will give me a shopping list. Checking out
Nonin (Phil Isakson), Hutchinson Technologies, etc.
Vince is going to ask the student branch (Hans) for a computer account in the lab and a door pass.
Future tasks:
We need to come up with some more test leads and connectors, and a battery tester.
I'd
like to have a detailed description of Wade's schematic, including
details about each subcircuit, the test points, the power supply, and
the input impedence.
We need a little project to identify and
mark the various piezo-electric films. It seems likely that that
we cannot trust any of the packaging any more, because of the number of
hands that have moved things around.
We need projects to
characterize AND DOCUMENT simple characteristics of the piezoelectric
films - specifically to understand whether thick backing vs. thin
backing is better, whether large surface areas vs. small surface areas
are better, etc.
We need to consider getting a BP device OTHER
THAN A CUFF to take continuous BP measurements while we're testing our
sensors and devices, for calibration and comparison purposes.
This is likely to be a high-dollar purchase, or donation from a
philanthropic organization.
-Larry
Volunteers Are Needed
Would you like to work on any part of this project? Envision a prototype, propose a way to implement it, and
send
your suggestion
to Larry. Or start out by just asking questions.
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