After Ratan Tata’s ‘Nano’ comes another ‘made in India’ feat, once again placing India squarely on the global map.
This time the seat of novelty is none other than our very own Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai, and the modernism is the world’s smallest wearable cardiac monitor. The Silicon locket, about the size of candy, is the brain child of Professor Rakesh Lal of the School of Bioscience and Bioengineering, and Professor S Mukherji. The project, funded by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), is lead by Professor Dinesh Sharma. Incidentally, though the locket awaits a suitable manufacturer, it’s already prepared at the Microelectronics Department of IIT Mumbai.
The tiny computer is capable of storing a week’s electrocardiogram (ECG) data. Professor Lal, a visiting fellow at the University of California, said the basic device is like plug-and-play and that there isn’t anything quite as small on the market. Basically, algorithms are fed into the locket’s system, enabling it to distinguish between jerks from running, from working out, or hiking stairs, or rhythmic heart beats.
Worn with five electrodes on the chest, a sensor in the locket records the heart’s electrical activity or ECG. If it detects aberration, it can automatically transmit the last few seconds of ECG data to a central server using a mobile phone border. Whenever a user feels uneasy, he/she can press an ornament button to mark that data so that a doctor can later inspect marked segments, and check the heart’s action before the irregularity.
When linked to a cell phone, the locket can be programmed to send SMS containing marked data to a doctor. Software in the locket forwards the data to the mobile, which sends the SMS.
