The Industrial Technology Research Institute has been named a CES 2021 Innovation Award Honoree for its baby monitoring device. It”s a small wearable that can be attached to the baby”s blanket for continuous heartbeat and respiratory monitoring. This award-winning technology along with other ITRI innovations will be on show at the virtual CES in January.
It’s a small device placed on the swaddling of a baby. Without touching the skin, it conducts continuous heartbeat and respiration monitoring. Data is sent to the phones of parents and carers, so that they can keep an eye on the little ones at all times. This technology developed by ITRI was named a CES 2021 Innovation Awards Honoree, chosen among submissions the world over. This year, ITRI was the only R&D institute in Taiwan to win the distinction.
Parent
Parents like us worry about sudden infant death syndrome. When the baby is sleeping, we’re afraid he might have heart or respiratory abnormalities.
Lin Hong-dun
ITRI Service Systems Technology Center
This sensing technology was developed with support from a special program under the economics ministry’s Department of Industrial Technology. It uses microchip technology that can take measurements without direct contact, without any contact with human skin.
Contact-free technology has seen rapid growth this year due to the pandemic. So have devices that can be used for home care. Over the course of half a year, ITRI’s R&D team tested the device on about a dozen first-time parents. Physiological data from babies was collected more than 100 times to fine-tune the no-contact micro sensing system.
Cheng Jen-chieh
ITRI Service Systems Technology Center
It has a market of about NT$50 billion. It can be used on infants, as well as seniors, or bedridden people.
Chang Pei-zen
ITRI executive vice president
Before, ultrasounds were huge machines. You could only perform ultrasound scans at hospitals. But now there’s this handheld ultrasound that doctors can carry around when they’re outside. Another device uses electric stimulation signals to monitor biometric vitals in rehabilitation. That could be extremely useful for athletes.
At its virtual exhibition booth in the 2021 CES, ITRI will showcase its R&D in areas like artificial intelligence, robotics and e-health, helping Taiwan’s innovations be seen by the world.
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