European Doctoral Network for Resilient Remote Healthcare Using Intelligent Sensing and Communication Technologies
The world is directly connected via cellular networks and Wi-Fi and will be integrated with radar technology in the coming 6G environment. The integrated radar and communication technologies can not only estimate human vital signs and limb activities, but also enable remote health monitoring that is essential for the timely and optimal management of disease. This project is bridging advanced wireless technologies and radio signal processing with biomedical signal analytics and health monitoring to maximize the effectiveness of personalized healthcare.
The EU-funded doctoral network, coordinated by Dr. Yang Miao, in collaboration with Prof. Andre Kokkeler from the Radio Systems (RS) group at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS), will support 11 individual research projects for doctoral students in the established European Doctoral Network for Resilient Remote Healthcare using Intelligent Sensing and Communication Technologies, called SMARTTEST.
Current healthcare systems in the EU and around the world rely primarily on individuals’ abilities to self-monitor to identify symptoms and to initiate the intervention by healthcare professionals. The current healthcare system is reactive but not preventative for disease management and is burdensome to vulnerable individuals. This leads to high healthcare costs, lowered quality of living, and in some cases, higher morbidity and mortality numbers. The rapidly developing integrated sensing and communication (ISAC) technologies, a feature of 6G, provide an awesome opportunity for enabling remote health monitoring in a contact-free, and thus continuous, manner.
The SMARTTEST project, coordinated by Dr. Yang Miao, brings together world-leading experts from Enschede, Leuven, Milano, Roma, Utrecht, Ostrava Poruba and Padova to create a Doctoral Network with the goal of training a future generation of engineers that are capable of bridging advanced wireless technologies and radio signal processing, biomedical signal analytics, and health monitoring to maximize the effectiveness of personalized healthcare. These inter-disciplinary engineers will develop a holistic view for the design and development of integrated sensing and communication devices as well as algorithms for contact-free, continuous and proactive remote health monitoring, with profound knowledge on biomedical domain and social practices.
“My vision for @DN-SMARTTEST is to train a future generation of talents that have multidisciplinary skillsets connecting Electrical Engineering and Biomedical Science, connecting advanced radio communication and radar technologies to the health monitoring in home and clinical settings, eventually benefiting the personalized healthcare,” said Coordinator Dr. Yang Miao.
The goal of the research programme is to develop and validate the first ISAC-enabled proactive/preventive and contact-free remote health monitoring system by integrating human sensing, vital function monitoring and health status assessment into wireless communication networks to overarch the following scientific and societal challenges:
- Talent shortage
- Communication/radar sensing hardware integration
- Electromagnetic modelling, signal/data processing and analytics
- Proactive health monitoring
- Sustainability, safety and regulatory compliance
Remcom’s objectives are to provide solutions and to educate and collaborate on simulation-to-measurement correlation studies for joint sensing and comms related to human activities including breathing. Remcom’s simulation tools are based on EM techniques to compute path loss and phase variance over time for electrically complex scatterers. Signal processing and random noise effects will be understood, defined, and set up for various human-centric actions and activities. Furthermore, co-development of ML and incorporating AI techniques to account for varying frequency-dependent roughness, wideband dispersion, clothing, and other effects will help build useful and high-quality datasets. New use cases will be determined and modelling those for further channel model development will require a deep integration and onboarding of talent for research-centric internships. Remcom looks to meet and extend on the ambitions set forth by Horizon Europe.
“Radar and RF technologies show tremendous promise for the welfare of human activities and health monitoring while providing privacy. Accurate channel models and Doppler maps via simulation tools will be critical to model various healthcare scenarios. Remcom’s EM simulation tools will provide accurate 3D multipath predictions in complex mixed environments with the use of MIMO and AI for post-processing large data combining comms and sensing technologies. Remcom is proud to support and participate in the @DN-SMARTTEST project,” said Tarun Chawla, Director.
SMARTTEST is funded by Horizon Europe (HORIZON) through the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Training & Mobility Actions (TMA) in the form of a Doctoral Networks (DN), which will host 11 doctoral candidates across Europe and beyond. The inter/multi-disciplinary characteristics are guaranteed by the presence of six academic beneficiaries (University of Twente, KU Leuven, Politecnico di Milano, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (National Research Council of Italy), University Medical Center Utrecht, and Technical University of Ostrava) and one industrial beneficiary (Adant Technologies Inc.). These beneficiaries are located in four European countries (the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and Italy) which possess top-class expertise in radio/biomedical systems and signal processing, signal/clinical data analytics and practices, and applications using AI.
Furthermore, the inter-sectoral characteristic is guaranteed by the support of a series of industrial, hospital and government entities: ten associated partner organisations from three European countries (The Netherlands, Belgium and Czechia) and even partners from Canada and the United States. Having Pharrowtech BV, Televic Healthcare, Remcom Inc., University of Waterloo, Goal 3, Ziekenhuis Groep Twente (Netherlands Hospital Group Twente), Sentigrate (Eventegrate), Rijksinspectie Digitale Infrastructuur (State Inspectorate of Digital Infrastructure of the Netherlands), Benetronic s.r.o., Toegepast-Natuurwetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research), Domovy na Orlici, p.o., and Catalyze group forms a fully interrelated, integrated, and international consortium.
SMARTTEST is also a collaboration between the Radio Systems (RS) and the Biomedical Signals and Systems (BSS) groups at University of Twente’s Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS). The supervisors are Coordinator Dr. Yang Miao and Prof. Andre Kokkeler from the Radio Systems (RS) group, and Dr. Ying Wang and Prof. Peter Veltink from the Biomedical Signals and Systems (BSS) group.
Connect to the SMARTTEST LinkedIn page to keep updated about the project and the upcoming recruitment for the eleven doctoral candidate positions, or visit www.DN-SMARTTEST.eu
About Remcom: For 30 years, Remcom has provided electromagnetic simulation and wireless propagation software for commercial users and U.S. government sponsors. Our innovative software tools, combined with exceptional support, have enabled the world’s most advanced engineering teams to deliver their devices to market by simplifying EM analysis for a wide variety of applications. Remcom is committed to its customers’ unique needs, offering flexible licensing options for installations of all sizes as well as custom-engineered solutions.
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