“You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” sang Bob Dylan in his iconic song, Subterranean Homesick Blues. *
But one might help if you are diabetic.
Perhaps “the sky has lost control” as Barbara Streisand sang in the revelatory song, Stoney End.
But weather forecasts are still valuable, even inspiring (ok, well, Kendrick Lamar or Snoop Dogg lyrics from a hip-hop weatherman could be inspirational, too.)
It turns out that the sophisticated sensor and satellite technologies used in weather forecasting are being applied to biomedicine and are now being incorporated into healthcare wearables.
So instead of Bob’s political commentary or Babs’ emotional cry, people who need to closely and carefully monitor their blood sugar levels are grateful for satellite sensing and meteorological expertise.
A new wearable system for checking blood sugar levels, developed at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, is inspired by weather satellite technology. The tech can fit inside a smartwatch and sense glucose levels more accurately (Photo Courtesy University of Waterloo)
Engineers at the University of Waterloo’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering have developed a unique wearable device that uses radar technology to monitor a person’s glucose levels.
The new system was developed by a team inspired by weather satellites, and the radar those devices use to monitor atmospheric changes like storm cloud movement.
From giant devices in orbit to ones worn on the wrist, this technology is enabling a non-invasive procedure that should be a positive change for people living with diabetes, eliminating the need for the painful finger pricks currently used by folks to measure their blood sugar, sometimes as often as ten times a day!
The new wearable system provides continuous glucose monitoring, looking at changes in the human body much as weather satellites look at changes in the atmosphere.
Dr. George Shaker, adjunct associate professor at Waterloo’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. (Photo University of Waterloo)
“We’ve developed radar technology that can fit inside a smartwatch and sense glucose levels more accurately than ever before,” said Dr. George Shaker, adjunct associate professor at Waterloo’s Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The system can reportedly detect even small changes in glucose levels: “No other technology can provide this level of precision without direct contact with the bloodstream,” Dr. Shakur added.
The wearable sensing device incorporates three main technologies:
A radar chip, used to send and receive signals sent through the body; the system uses mmWaves – short millimetre wavelengths – in the transmission and reception of signals. As well, microcontrollers using AI algorithms process the radar signals and, by learning from the accumulated data, the system improves its accuracy and reliability over time.
The third important component is a specialized material known as a metasurface. It boosts the radar’s resolution and sensitivity, giving the system more accurate and actionable glucose readings.
A metasurface or metamaterial is a man-made, two-dimensional, sheet-like material with special properties that do not exist in natural materials, such as the ability to manipulate or respond to electromagnetic waves. Metamaterials are used in the manufacture of programmable smart materials, surfaces, and sensors; when combined with nanotechnologies, they have uses in such widespread fields as optics, communications, and biomedicine.
Shakur and his team described their use of metasurfaces and the wearable biosensing system they’ve developed in a scientific paper, Radar near-field sensing using metasurface for biomedical applications; the award-winning paper was recently featured in the Nature Portfolio publication, Communications Engineering.
The prototype developed at UWaterloo is powered by a USB cable, but of course, the team is wor
king to make the wearable more portable by incorporating rechargeable batteries. The system could also be expanded, Shakur noted, to monitor other health conditions and metrics, likes blood pressure.
From making prostheses to detecting cancers, metamaterials are seen as an important new tool in biosensing and health care treatment.
Clinical trials of the UWaterloo glucose-checking wearable device are now being conducted, and with further refinement, Shakur says the device is getting closer to being fully marketable.
The development of various nanomaterials and metasurfaces for health, medical treatment and therapy has been underway at the University of Waterloo for some time. Some three years ago, researchers there developed a biosensor and electronic device for the detection of a COVID-19 SPIKE protein, using graphene-based thin-film materials. The device was demonstrated to be able to detect COVID-19 within a few minutes at ultra-low concentrations.
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* BTW: Timothée Chalamet has won the Screen Actors Guild Best Actor award for his current cinematic portrayal of Bob Dylan, and an Oscar may be next. Chalamet recreates Dylan’s original video for Subterranean Homesick Blues in the film A Complete Unknown, delivering the weatherman line and mimicking Dylan holding up cue cards with the song’s lyrics.
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