Published: February 14, 2018

CENGN is at a point in time where we’re wrapping up projects from the last month and are now getting ready for the next cohort of Canadian businesses to utilize the CENGN infrastructure. This next high-growth firm is called Studio 1 Labs from Markham, Ontario. Studio 1 Labs has developed an intelligent bedsheet with fabric sensor technology to collect patient health data. The data collected through the fabric sensors is then displayed through a patient-centered application providing doctors with information such as vital signs. Instead of tangling a patient in wires and devices or requiring nurses to make time consuming routine checkups, Studio 1 Labs’ intelligent bedsheet produces the essential medical information. This avoids the requirement of attachments to a patient’s body or an in-person assessment. Before getting into the CENGN project, let’s take a closer look at this innovative Canadian company and their solution.

The Team Behind Studio 1 Labs

Studio 1 Labs was founded by two individuals who became knowledgeable on the topics of fabric sensors, electronics, and advanced analytics. Co-founder, Dr. Olivia Lin, received a PhD in cognitive psychology and is leading the development of artificial intelligence for health emergency prediction. Dr. Lin teamed up with Edward Shim who advanced the fabric sensor capabilities to detect a higher range in data quality. The pair founded Studio 1 Labs where the intelligent bedsheet was created under the principle of collaboration. The emerging company’s solution was developed to be inexpensive yet high in quality for preventative care, while at the same time not disrupting the natural environment of the patient. Their intelligent bedsheet and patient-monitoring dashboard is designed to enhance the patient health care marketplace for developed and developing nations around the globe.

How the Intelligent Bedsheet will Impact the Industry

Eliminating the need for any attachments to the patient’s body, the intelligent bedsheet has fabric sensors dispersed throughout its material that measure heart rate, respiration quality, movement, and other factors indicating potential health issues. The bedsheet uses a machine learning algorithm alerting doctors of any common signs of potential health concerns. Getting to the problem before it’s too late is the goal of the intelligent bedsheet, which will then enable doctors to take preventative measures. To transport the data from the sensors to the patient-monitoring dashboard, bedsheets are either hard-wired or wirelessly connected to a local controller where patient data is distributed through a private network. The data is collected on a server within the client-hosted network. Health data specific to each patient is then displayed on an application.

With this system, Studio 1 Labs will revolutionize patient health tracking in hospitals, old age homes, and at-home medical monitoring. By using Studio 1 Labs’ intelligent bedsheet technology, doctors and nurses will have real-time access to past health trends and the status of each patient without the need of intrusive equipment or onsite visits.

The Project: Scale Testing the Intelligent Bedsheet

Studio 1 Labs completed their first clinical trial with great success. The initial trial contained four units of the intelligent bedsheets but faced the challenge of bandwidth limitations for data flow. In preparation for an upcoming clinical trial, which will scale the solution to a greater number of intelligent bedsheets, the company has begun a scale testing project at CENGN. Studio 1 Labs must validate their solution based on input from 20 intelligent bedsheets outputting 2.5MB of data per second per device.

In this project, Studio 1 Labs will deploy their solution on four CENGN bare metal servers. On the CENGN infrastructure, the company will test the data transmission, application functionality, and storage capability requirements of their solution. To make sure Studio 1 Labs’ intelligent bedsheet is able to meet the resource demand for the upcoming trial, they have requested to test the performance of their solution as the number of users are scaled. Over the next 5 weeks, CENGN and Studio 1 Labs will work together to benchmark the server resource requirements for collecting sensor data from 20 devices. To do this, sensor data needs to be successfully simulated, allowing CENGN and Studio 1 Labs to quantify the resource utilization of the database server over the course of the IoT project.

This project is a great example of a growing Canadian business using CENGN’s resources to make sure their solution is ready for the next step. Studio 1 Labs has their product designed, but now needs testing and verification that an appropriate number of their devices can function on a normal client network. Testing the simultaneous data-transfer from multiple bedsheets will give Studio 1 Labs an idea as to where their solution stands in terms of scaling competencies and knowledge on how to improve their product as more patients use the intelligent bedsheet.

About the Author

CENGN, Canada’s Centre of Excellence in Next Generation Networks, drives technology innovation and industry growth through our testbed, technical expertise, talent development, and partner ecosystem. Through our projects, CENGN enables small and medium Canadian Enterprises to test and validate promising technologies, removing barriers to product commercialization and accelerating market growth.

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