Wearable LIGHT SENSOR ARRAY for medical application with HIGH SPATIAL & CHROMATICAL accuracy . – L-iOs

This project aims to develop a brand new light sensor array for biomedical applications. It is designed to meet the criterion of "non-invasive blood glucose monitoring". It is thought to meet the requirements of the treatment of diabetes type I. In addition it is built around a scalable technology: application to blood glucose is one of possible applications among others (certainly highly bankable and highly wished by patients nowadays). It will be fully reprogrammable, resizable and geometrically reformattable. It is structured as a real non-invasive imaging and dosing device for organic compounds in living tissues. So it can be adapted to the assay of biological molecules involved in other diseases.
The main of its features is to be wireless which enables real-time reporting toward the physician (in charge of the patient) of any drift in monitored parameters. It targets the mobile medicine and digital health (mHealth and E-Health). Biometric data such as heart rate, blood saturation, respiration, movement and many other physiological signals will also be easily analyzed and transmitted. These data are currently not monitored continuously and this application will improve the well-being of patients. Indeed it will reconsider the scope of health and medical care by bringing closer outpatients to healthcare professionals (hospital "on demand").
A sticky patch as we plan to do is the only sensor shape that can provide continuous and reliable analysis of a parameter (this trend has been validated by the mayo clinic in diabetes). The challenge will be to find the right technology to meet the requirement of medical standards level.
The conformation of this sensor is the main concern for whom wants to get a good measurement accuracy because of the skin properties (inhomogeneous medium with light absorbance and light scattering). Unlike other techniques currently used, we will rely on the BEER-LAMBERT law in all wavelengths of the visible and Infrared spectrum while designing a sensor with multiple measurement points. Comparatively, the existing technique is based on two measuring points and up to four wavelengths.
In order to decrease calculations when processing the signal and to "select" a fixed depth of the skin where stands the vessels, we will use the polarization properties of light among others.
Coupled with this, spectroscopy is very promising for clinical applications because it is portable, relatively inexpensive, and the light is non-ionizing. near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) will be very useful because in this wavelength range, each biochemical compound has a unique "fingerprint". This is already used outside the medicine for detection and quantitation purpose (biochemistry, fermentation, pharmacy, ..). NIR spectrum penetrates deep into the skin because it is very poorly absorbed by the latter compared to other wavelengths.
CONCLUSION: Our goal in this project is to develop a new imager that integrates both the illumination source and the detector (CMOS). The device should hold the surface of a thumb. However, the limited efficiency of absorption of silicon involves the need to develop a new sensor. A new architecture is being considered. To obtain a high S/N ratio for the whole visible spectrum, while retaining a high spatial resolution. Besides its metabolic capabilities, its architecture will take real pictures of the tissue architecture. It will open the door to new analytical techniques. All this should lead to the development of an imaging array for medical applications with high spatial & chromatic resolution. This is the purpose of the ANR.