Enabling efficient and intelligent embedded systems for the next generation of human healthcare and well-being

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• Nhat (Nick) Pham, University of Cardiff
• Tuesday 26 November 2024, 16:00-17:00
• Computer Lab, SS03 and Online.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Cecilia Mascolo.

Zoom: https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/85449107363?pwd=n8od3wrb7gFKvijAVySSruMYmQ58Lz.1

Abstract: The wearable market has experienced significant growth in recent years, reaching over $186 billion globally by 2030. However, embedded computers on these wearables are not as smart as they should be. Due to energy and computational resource constraints, they rely heavily on off-load devices (e.g., mobile phones, cloud servers), which has proved to be fatal for many applications. On the other hand, the human brain is the most efficient computer in the world. It consists of trillions of neurons while consuming less energy than a light bulb. In the near future, there will be hundreds of intelligent devices that invisibly weave themselves into the fabrics of everyday wearables (e.g., clothes, hats, eyeglasses, earphones, shoes, etc.), providing us with tremendous information about our bodies. They can even monitor and modulate our biological processes to enhance healthcare and well-being. So, how can we learn from our own brains to design smarter and more efficient embedded computers to improve healthcare and well-being? In this talk, we will dive deeper into the main challenges and current progress to enable this vision. First, similar to how the five senses provide sensory inputs to the brain, we will discuss how we can develop new biosensing methods to collect various information from our bodies, which need to be both socially acceptable and robust in everyday usage. Second, we will talk about how to enable efficient embedded intelligence of the captured biosignals on resource-constrained wearables. Third, our brain does not need to carry a battery as the human body is already a mobile energy source. So, how can we take advantage of the energy from our bodies and surrounding environment to make the wearables truly invisible? Finally, we will highlight some healthcare applications that have been conducted with our developed technologies and the potential for the future.

Bio: Dr Pham leads the Agile Cyber-Physical Systems lab at the School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University, UK. He is a member of the larger Cardiff IoT and Human-Centred Computing sections and also the current Deputy Director of IT Infrastructure and Technical Support for the School of Computer Science and Informatics. His research interests include Intelligent and Efficient Cyber-Physical Systems, Human-based Sensing, Edge-AI and On-chip Intelligence. Before joining Cardiff University, he obtained my DPhil (PhD) with his research on intelligent head-worn physiological sensing wearables, fully funded by the University of Oxford DPhil Scholarship. He also worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the EPSRC ACE -OPS project in the same department from 2022 to 2023. His research has been recognised by Oxford University’s nominee for ACM SIGMOBILE Dissertation Award’24, Communication of the ACM Research Highlight’21, ACM SIGMOBILE Research Highlight’20, ACM GetMobile’19 Research Highlight, and the Best Paper at ACM MobiCom’19. He helped to spin off a tech startup (Earable Neuroscience Inc) and produced multiple international patents. His group’s work has been featured in several press articles from Bloomberg, BBC News, DailyMail, Euronews, etc. He is currently leading several funded projects from EPSRC , the Royal Society, Global Wales, the Academy of Medical Science, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering, and the Alan Turing Institute, and is also recognised as a GW4 future research leader of the Southwest and Wales.

This talk is part of the Mobile and Wearable Health Seminar Series series.

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• Mobile and Wearable Health Seminar Series
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