Project SmartVista: Energy-autonomous sensor system for cardiac monitoring

Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death in Europe - with more than 6 million new cases every year within the EU.  Reliable monitoring systems that detect intermittent abnormalities and recognize critical cardiac behaviors would be an effective means of preventing the feared sudden cardiac death. The goal of the EU SmartVista (Smart Autonomous Multi Modal Sensors for Vital Signs Monitoring) project is to develop and demonstrate a next-generation, low-cost, intelligent multi-modal sensor platform to reduce the incidence of sudden death from cardiovascular disease.

The key innovation in SmartVista is the integration of 1D/2D nanomaterial-based sensors to monitor the heart, thermoelectric energy harvesters to harvest energy from the the the body's temperature to power the system, and printable battery systems to store that energy. 

Together, these will lead to a self-powered device that autonomously monitors the patient's electrocardiograph, respiratory flow, oxygen flow, stress indicators in sweat, and temperature

Heterogeneous 3D integration on foil and nanosensors

The contribution of  the Fraunhofer EMFT is the heterogeneous system integration of the different components on thin flexible films and the development of a 1D/2D sensor in nanotechnology for chemical analysis of components in human sweat.

However, it will be some time before the device can actually be used in clinical practice: In a next step, the researchers are looking for suitable partners from industry to further develop the device to product level and then to undergo the necessary clinical tests. 

The project is funded within the Horizon 2020 program under grant number 825114.