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SINGAPORE: Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a wireless smart suit for athletes that works with electromagnetic signals from a smartphone.
The battery-free suit is lightweight and can be worn outdoors, allowing athletic performance to be tracked with real-time physiological data from multiple sensors.
It took the NUS Institute for Healthcare Innovation and Technology team about two years to develop the suit, the university said in a press release on Monday (September 21).
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In research results published earlier this year, the team showed that it was possible to transmit near-field communication signals from a smartphone to different locations on the body using specially designed inductive patterns.
The team designed a web-like pattern of threads on the suit to transmit these signals from a nearby smartphone to sensors on the body from up to 1m away, providing power and data connectivity.
The smart suit is powered by electromagnetic signals from a smartphone. (Photo: National University of Singapore)
Current technology for monitoring athletic performance ranges from wearable physical activity trackers, which only collect single-point data, to “bulky” clinical monitoring equipment, NUS said.
However, the “ideal system” would collect data from multiple sensors on the athlete’s body in an outdoor environment, while keeping “volume, weight and cables” to a minimum, the university said.
“Our smart suit works with most modern smartphones, which act as both a power source and a display for viewing sensor data. Creating a smart suit that can be powered by the wireless technology built into the smartphone is a breakthrough, “said assistant professor John Ho, who led the NUS team.
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The current prototype of the smart suit supports up to six sensors per smartphone while collecting data such as spinal posture, running gait and body temperature, NUS said.
Among these functions, the ability to measure the position of the spine through multiple nodes is most important, as the posture of the spine is an integral part of developing a strong athletic posture that is often overlooked due to the difficulty in collecting real-time data previously, “the university said. .
He added that other potential applications for the smart suit included clinical diagnosis of spinal disorders and 24-hour health monitoring.
The researchers plan to develop new sensors to increase the range of data collected and work with professional athletes to help them monitor their physiological signals during training, the university said.
