WOW: the World Of Wearables

Edward Sazonov

Recent years have seen an explosion in the development and applications of wearable sensors with
primary focus on personalized fitness, healthcare and rehabilitation. The growth is fueled by the
underlying technological advances that enable proliferation of the wearable technologies. Advances in
sensing techniques, micro-electro-mechanical devices, flexible and textile electronics enable creation of
miniature and inexpensive sensing solutions for a wide variety of physiological variables. A dramatic
increase in the processing capabilities and reduction in power consumption of embedded processors
facilitate real-time signal processing and pattern recognition in battery- or environmentally-powered
devices. Rapidly evolving wireless communication techniques permit instantaneous information delivery
virtually anywhere in world and immediate feedback to the user. Combined, these advances form the
foundation of wearable sensor devices that attempt to address many of the important challenges facing
todays healthcare. The primary advantage of wearable technology is that it can be incorporated into
items of clothing or otherwise that patients and/or research subjects normally wear, so placing the
instrumentation is no different than getting dressed, leading to improved compliance in the use of the
devices. The growing list of wearable sensor applications includes fitness, sports, elder care,
rehabilitation, diagnostics, biomedical research and many other applications. The talk will cover
fundamental technologies and issues facing the world of wearable devices, give an overview of several
representative projects and demonstrate use of wearable sensor technology in applications of human
behavior monitoring.
Bio: Edward Sazonov received the Diploma of Systems Engineer from Khabarovsk State University of
Technology, Russia, in 1993 and the Ph.D. degree in Computer Engineering from West Virginia
University, Morgantown, WV, in 2002. Currently he is an Associate Professor in the department of
Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA and the head of
the Computer Laboratory of Ambient and Wearable Systems (http://claws.eng.ua.edu). His research
interests span wireless, ambient and wearable biomedical devices, as well as methods of biomedical
signal processing and pattern recognition. Wearable devices developed in his laboratory include an
accurate physical activity and gait monitor integrated into a shoe insole (SmartStep); a wearable sensor
for objective detection and characterization of food intake (AIM); a wearable sensor system for
monitoring of cigarette smoking (PACT); sensor systems for early diagnosis of risk of falling in elderly
(ALARM) and others. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National
Institutes of Health, National Academies of Science, as well as by state agencies and private industry.