INNOVATION September-October 2015

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Palmer’s Reveal device (early prototype shown, above) can be embedded in clothing to measure wearers’ anxiety and stress levels. PHOTOS, ANDREA PALMER

“Right now, the patient has to try to describe the severity of the tremors to the doctor,” Servati says, “and it takes a lot of guesswork and trial and error to determine the best treatment or the right amount of medicine.” If the fabrics also charge themselves, the costs for and the inconveniences of employing wearable technology diminish significantly. “We work on both ends,” Servati says of his lab, “We look at materials that are more comfortable and less power hungry—seeing if we can perhaps generate energy from the movements of the body—that will also gather data that is valid, accurate, and trustable.”

Applications for this kind of reliable health-data collection are practically limitless, says recent UBC mechanical engineering graduate Andrea Palmer, EIT. Over the past six months, Palmer has led a team to develop a device that can be undetectably embedded in clothing to track and measure stress and anxiety in children with autism, who are often non-verbal and can be very sensitive about clothes that itch or scratch. “The device, which gets smarter the more it is worn, measures three leading variables: sweat, heart rate and temperature,” she says, “and transmits that information to the parent or caregiver’s smartphone.

MORE ON VANCOUVER’S WEARABLE TECHNOLOGY SCENE Other Vancouver-based companies starting to make their mark on the burgeoning wearables market include several that are focused on workplace health and safety: • Vandrico Solutions Inc.’s to determine where and when he or she may be at risk of back strain, carpal tunnel syndrome, or other musculoskeletal issue. • Nanozen Industries’ helmet-mounted

DustCount sensor detects toxic or dangerous air particles inside mines and sawmills in real-time. • CommandWear Systems’ cloud-based platform allows police headquarters to exchange secure text messages with police officers and track their locations during emergencies or large events through a smart watch .

MetricsManager can be integrated into a smart watch or heads-up display to provide real-time safety information for industry workers. For example, miners could receive alerts about blasting or potential mine collapses.

• LifeBooster’s wireless sensors can read a worker’s biometric signals

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