Research Projects

Current Projects

Events-of-interest Capture Using Novel Body-worn Fully-passive Wireless sensors for S&CC

Link to NSF Smart and Connect Community (S&CC) Project

Patients with chronic illness require frequent and avoidable hospital visits. This project aims to develop a new class of battery-less, low-cost, disposable, wireless electronic patch sensors to monitor a variety of physiological signals and a custom smartphone app to monitor their health status and to elect to share their anonymized events-of-interest with their community towards a smart and connected community (S&CC). This will empower users, permit the community stakeholders to assess population health status, reduce the need for frequent hospital visits, and help identify potential individual and community actions to achieve improvement in health status. The project also involves the training of undergraduate and graduate students in interdisciplinary research activities on emerging technologies, and is expected to impact public and private sector efforts to improve healthcare.

Funding: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Duration: 2016-2020

Related selected publications:
B. Morshed, B. Harmon, and M. Rahman, "EAGER: Events of Interest (EoI) Capture Using Novel Body-worn Fully-passive Wireless Sensors for S&CC", 7th Annual Cyber-Physical Systems Principal Investigators' Meeting, Arlington, VA, Oct. 31 - Nov. 1, 2016.
B. I. Morshed, "Impedance Phlebography Based Pulse Sensing Using Inductively-Coupled Inkjet-Printed WRAP Sensor", Invited Paper, Commission B (Special session: Wearable Antennas and Electronics), National Radio Science Meeting, Boulder, CO, Jan. 4-6, 2017.
B. Noroozi and B. I. Morshed, "PSC Optimization of 13.56-MHz Resistive Wireless Analog Passive Sensors", IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and Techniques, vol. 65, no. 9, pp. 3548-3555, Sept. 2017.
B. Morshed, B. Harmon, M. Rahman, Md. S. Zaman, Md. J. Rahman, S. Afroz, T. Siddiqui, B. Noroozi, and J. Coleman, "Events-of-interest Capture Using Novel Body-worn Fully-passive Wireless sensors for S&CC", Smart Cities Connect Conference & Expo. (US ignite), Austin, TX, Jun. 25 – 28, 2017.
B. I. Morshed, B. Harmon, M. S. Zaman, M. J. Rahman, S. Afroz, and M. Rahman, "Inkjet Printed Fully-passive Body-worn Wireless Sensors for Smart and Connected Community (SCC)", J. Low Power Electron. Appl., vol. 7, no. 4, article 26, pp. 1-21, Nov. 2017; doi:10.3390/jlpea7040026.
B. Morshed, B. Harmon, and M. Rahman, "EAGER: Events of Interest (EoI) Capture Using Novel Body-worn Fully-passive Wireless Sensors for S&CC", 8th Annual Cyber-Physical Systems Principal Investigators' Meeting, Alexandria, VA, Nov. 13-14, 2017.
B. Noroozi and B. I. Morshed, "Coil distance and angle misalignment effects on the mutual inductance for 13.56 MHz WRAP sensors," 2018 United States National Committee of URSI National Radio Science Meeting (USNC-URSI NRSM), Boulder, CO, 2018, pp. 1-2.
M. J. Rahman, R. Mahajan, and B. I. Morshed, "Severity Classification of Obstructive Sleep Apnea Using Only Heart Rate Variability Measures with an Ensemble Classifier", IEEE conf Biomedical and Health Informatics (BHI), Las Vegas, NV, (in press), 2018.
M. S. Zaman and B. I. Morshed, "Design and Verification of a Portable Scanner for Body-worn Wireless Resistive Analog Passive (WRAP) Sensors", IEEE Electro-Information Theory (EIT) Conf., Oakland, MI, (accepted), May 3-5, 2018.
T. Siddiqui and B. I. Morshed, "Severity Classification of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Asthma with Heart Rate and SpO2 Sensors", IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Honolulu, HI, (accepted), July 17-21, 2018.
T. Siddiqui and B. I. Morshed, "Severity Exploratory Model Analysis of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and Asthma with Heart Rate and SpO2", IEEE Electro-Information Theory (EIT) Conf., Oakland, MI, (accepted), May 3-5, 2018.
B. Noroozi and B. I. Morshed, "Sensitivity optimization of Printed Spiral Coil for Wireless Resistive Analog Passive (WRAP) Sensors using Genetic Algorithm," 2018 40th Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC), Honolulu, HI, 2018, pp. 4653-4656.
B. I. Morshed and M. Abu-Saude, "Apparatus and Method to Capture Body Signals with Conjugate Coils and Paired Coils", USPTO Provisional Patent Application, No. 62/664,329, Filed on Apr. 30, 2018.
M. Abu-Saude and B. I. Morshed, " Accessing Differential Measures with a Conjugate Coil-pair for Wireless Resistive Analog Passive (WRAP) ECG Sensors", IEEE Electro-Information Theory (EIT) Conf., Oakland, MI, (accepted), May 3-5, 2018. (Received 1st Place award)

Additive printed multilayer complex circuitry on flexible and disposable substrates

Inkjet printing is a relatively new technology for low temperature thin film depositions on planar substrates. The goal of this project is to develop a homogenous fabrication process using this technology for complex electronics circuitry towards low-cost and disposable body-worn electronic patches for healthcare applications. We have developed a novel technique for multilayer additive PCB development and utilized this thin film prototyping technology to develop our novel fully passive wireless sensors for physiological bio0signal monitoring.

Funding: University of Memphis Research Initiative Fund (UMRIF)
Duration: 2017-2019

Related selected publications:
B. I. Morshed, "Inkjet Printed Thin Film Technology for Wireless Biosensors", Invited Paper, Session D4, Intl. Conf. on Metallurgical Coating and Thin Films, San Diego, CA, April 25-29, 2016.
B. I. Morshed, "Flexible and Disposable rWAPS Printed Sensors on Paper Substrate", NIH-IEEE Conf Healthcare Innovations and Point-of-care Technologies (HIPoCT), (accepted), Nov. 9-10, 2015.
B. I. Morshed, Multilayer Additive Printed Electronic Circuit, USPTO Provisional Patent Application, 62/252,706, Nov. 9, 2015.

Wearable/body-worn Wireless Resistive Analog Passive (WRAP) sensors

Fully-passive wireless body-sensors pose viable solutions for unobtrusive monitoring of physiological signals at natural settings. We are developing a resistive transducer based Wireless Resistive Analog Passive (WRAP) sensors that can collect various physiological signals while achieving smallest power requirement, fast response time, and extremely low cost disposable passive sensors. The passive sensor is composed of a loop antenna, a tuning capacitor, and a resistive transducer suitable for the type of physiological signals to be measured.

Funding: FedEx Institute of Technology (FIT) Innovation Grant.
Duration: 2016-2018

Related selected publications:
Patent Application: B. I. Morshed, S. Consul-Pacareu. Wireless Analog Passive Sensors. USPTO, US 61/979,223, Apr. 14 2014.
S. Consul-Pacareu, D. Arellano, and B. I. Morshed, "Body-worn Fully-Passive Wireless Analog Sensors for Biopotential Measurement Through Load Modulation", IEEE Biowireless, (accepted), 2015.
S. Consul-Pacareu, D. Arellano, and B. I. Morshed, "Body-worn Fully-Passive Wireless Analog Sensors for Physiological Signal Capture Through Load Modulation using Resistive Transducers," IEEE Healthcare Innovations and Point-of-Care Technologies Conf., (accepted), 2014.

Past Projects

Patterned vertically aligned carbon nanotube (pvCNT) dry electrode for long duration EEG and ECG

Dry electrodes for neuro-physiological volume conductance parameter measurement (such as ECG, EEG, and GSR) promises the ability for very long duration monitoring of patients. This project investigates the feasibility of a novel dry electrode interfacing of Patterned Vertically-aligned Carbon Nanotube (pvCNT) sensor for dry electrodes.

Funding: FedEx Institute of Technology (FIT) Innovation Grant.

Related selected publications:
Patent Application: B. I. Morshed, Md. N. Sahadat, S. Consul-Pacareu. Patterned Carbon Nanotube Electrode. USPTO, 62/005,390, May 30 2014.
M. Abu-Saude, S. Consul-Pacareu, and B. I. Morshed, "Feasibility of Patterned Vertical CNT for Dry Electrode Sensing of Physiological Parameters", IEEE Biowireless, (accepted), 2015.

BRAINSens: Body-worn Reconfigurable Architecture of Integrated Network Sensors

The conventional EEG system consists of a driven-right-leg (DRL) circuit, which prohibits modularization of the system. We propose a Lego-like connectable fully reconfigurable architecture of wearable EEG that can be easily customized and deployed at naturalistic settings for collecting neurological data. The proposed scalable system is suitable for non-clinical settings with neurological patients. This cost-effective monitoring system with plug-and-play sensors is fast and easy to deploy. This system can incorporate any physiological sensor nodes like ECG, body temperature, pulse oximeter, etc.

Related selected publications:
B. I. Morshed, and R. Mahajan, "Fully Reconfigurable Modular Body-Worn Sensors", International Patent Application, PCT/US15/60293, filed Nov 12, 2015. Patent application, 62/078,822, Nov. 12, 2014.
R.Mahajan and B.I.Morshed, "Performance Analysis of a DRL-less AFE for Battery-Powered Wearable EEG", Measurement , vol. 90, pp. 583–591, 2016.
R. Mahajan, B. I. Morshed, and G. M. Bidelman, "Design and validation of a wearable "DRL-less" EEG using a novel fully-reconfigurable architecture", IEEE Engineering Medicine and Biology Society Conf., (accepted), Aug. 16-20, 2016.
B. I. Morshed, and R. Mahajan, "Body-worn Reconfigurable Architecture of Integrated Network Sensors (BRAINsens) to Monitor Neuro-physiological Activities at Naturalistic Environment", IEEE EMBS BRAIN Grand Challenges Conf., Washington, DC, 13-14 Nov. 2014.

Smart Drug Delivery System (DDS) by implantable chitosan microbeads with magnetic nanoparticles

The research group is developing a novel smart drug delivery system (DDS) based on biocompatible chitosan microfilm and microbeads for local delivery of encapsulated drugs released through external stimulations. It is envisioned that controllable DDS could facilitate maintaining drug concentration within prescribed therapeutic limits over desired duration or provide a burst release of drug when needed. Majority of DDS suffer from an uncontrollable diffusion profile, leading to passive drug release over time, or poor control of external or internal stimuli. We are developing a novel DDS platform based on chitosan embedded with magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) that is responsive to electric and magnetic stimulations.

Funding: FedEx Institute of Technology. Collaboration: Biomedical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Chemistry.

Related selected publications:
A. Mohapatra, G. McGraw, B. I. Morshed, J. A. Jennings, W. O. Haggard, J. D. Bumgardner, and S. R. Mishra, "Electric Stimulus Response of Chitosan Microbeads Embedded with Magnetic Nanoparticles for Controlled Drug Delivery", IEEE Healthcare Innovations and Point-of-Care Technologies Conf., (accepted), 2014. (Received award for one of the best 6 papers of the conference)
M. N. Sahadat, A. P. Hoban, B. I. Morshed, W. O. Haggard, "Investigation of Electrical Stimulus on Chitosan Film Based DDS", IEEE EMBC (accepted), 2014.
A. Mohapatra, M. N. Sahadat, G. McGraw, A. P. Hoban, B. I. Morshed, W. O. Haggard, J. D. Bumgardner, J. A. Jennings, S. R. Misra, "Stimuli-Controlled Drug Delivery System Development with Implantable Biocompatible Chitosan Microbeads", 4th IAJC/ISAM Joint International Conference, (accepted), Sept. 25-27, FL, 2014.

NeuroMonitor Wearable Ambulatory EEG Device for Real-life Monitoring of Cognitive Loads

This research focuses on developing a wearable, miniature, ambulatory BCI to wirelessly capture brain signals in the form of electroencephalogram (EEG) in natural settings. Scalp EEG can monitor collective activities of neuronal firings in brain lobes as oscillatory waves that can be related to the mental states, cognitive loads, stimulations and perceptions. The prototyped NeuroMonitor device (3 revisions) was developed through careful hardware-software co-design to optimize size, power, portability and connectivity. The 2-channel system composes of 4-stage biopotential amplifier with active analog filtering, 16b ADC on PSoC3 micro-controller, along with other peripherals and power management circuits. The hardware is miniature (size: 2.2" x 0.8" x 0.36", weight: 41.8 gm) such that it can be concealed within a headband. The collected data can be wirelessly transmitted for on-line monitoring or stored on-board for offline analysis. Application areas are engagement monitoring of children with developmental delays, seizure detection and advisory system for epileptic patients, and Alzheimer's patients.

Funding: Strengthening Communities Initiative (SCI). Collaborator: Special Kids & Families (SKF).

Related selected publications:
S. Consul-Pacareu, R. Mahajan, M. N. Sahadat, B. I. Morshed, "Wearable Ambulatory 2-Channel EEG NeuroMonitor Platform for Real-life Engagement Monitoring Based on Brain Activities at the Prefrontal Cortex," 4th IAJC/ISAM Joint Intl. Conf., (accepted), Sept. 25-27, FL, 2014.
R. Mahajan, C. A. Majmudar, S. Khatun, B. I. Morshed, and G. M. Bidelman, "NeuroMonitor Ambulatory EEG Device: Comparative Analysis and Its Application for Cognitive Load Assessment", IEEE Healthcare Innovations and Point-of-Care Technologies Conf., (accepted), 2014.
M. N. Sahadat, E. L. Jacobs, B. I. Morshed, "Hardware-Efficient Robust Biometric Identification from Amplitude and Interval Features of 0.58 Second Limb (Lead I) ECG Signal Using Logistic Regression Classifier", IEEE EMBC (accepted), 2014.
S. Consul-Pacareu, B. I. Morshed, "Power optimization of NeuroMonitor EEG device: Hardware/Software co-designed Interrupt Driven clocking", 6th Intl. IEEE/EMBS Conf. Neural Engineering, pp. 25-28, Nov. 2013.
M. N. Sahadat, S. Consul-Pacareu, B. I. Morshed, "Wireless Ambulatory ECG Signal Capture for Cognitive Load Study Using the NeuroMonitor Platform", 6th Intl. IEEE/EMBS Conf. Neural Engineering, pp. 497-500, Nov. 2013.
R. Mahajan, S. Consul-Pacareu, M.J. AbuSaude, M.N. Sahadat, B. I. Morshed, "Ambulatory EEG Neuromonitor Platform for Engagement Studies of Children with Development Delays", SPIE Proc. Smart Biomedical & Physiological Sensor Tech X, vol. 8719, pp. 87190L(1-10), May 2013.
B. I. Morshed, A. Massa, "Cutting-Edge Technology for a Cognitive Load Performance Assessment System," MEDS Magazine (Cover article), pp. 16-18, Nov. 2013.
B. I. Morshed, "Development of a minimalistic embedded wireless EEG system for cyber-physical interfacing towards wearable body sensors", Cognitive Sensing, Computing & Networking Workshop, AL, USA, 15 Aug. 2012.

Single-Molecule DNA Sequencing

This project investigates the feasibility study of a third-generation single-molecule DNA sequencing device with Molecular Dynamics (MD) modeling towards the development of a biosensor containing biological enzyme on a biochip with a carbon nanotube that interplays engineering and life science.

Wireless transmission of helmet impact sensor

This project developed a low-power micro-controller based embedded system with low-power wireless access to smart phones for impact data transmission. The embedded sensor was implanted inside the helmet of the player that triggers when impact with severity of concussion occurs and alerts the coach through the smart phone monitor.
Company: Impakt Protective, Ottawa, Canada

Funding: R&D project with industry collaborator.

Project duration: May 2011 – August 2011
The developed technology is in production by Impakt Protective. (http://youtu.be/4h45mLGiLu8)

SmartPark - A Smart Parking Meter System (using semi-active RFID)

The project developed a semi-active RFID based parking gate control system as an assistive technology for persons with fine motor skill deficiency to allow opening and closing of the arm in the parking lot as the vehicle with the parking tag arrives. The system included a remote, secure web-access facility through IP (wifi) for data logging, monitoring and override.
Collaborator: Algonquin College Parking Service, Ottawa, Canada
Project duration: September 2010 – April 2010
Role: PI
Team: 3 students of Algonquin College

Self-adjustable smart antenna system for point-to-point 5GHz RF link

This project developed a remote Telnet based interface for precise alignment of the 5GHz RF array antenna within the enclosure to improve RSSI and signal reception in a point-to-point radio link.
Collaborator: Eion Wireless, Ottawa, Canada
Project duration: September 2010 – April 2010
Role: PI
Team: 3 students of Algonquin College