SensorTech4Health (ST4H) addresses major pain points of today's health products with innovative sensing solutions.
By developing application-specific electronic components and intelligent systems, significant innovations become possible, first of all to the benefit of persons in need, but as well regarding societal aspects like cost-efficient health offerings. In particular, hearing aids shall become small, smart & safe, everybody should be able to live independently as long as possible and better health & well-being status and decisions shall be reached by continuously quantified, personal data.
SensorTech4Health brings industrial players in hearing aid (Cochlear) and sensor & AI technology (BOSCH group) together with consumer health device makers for smart textiles (Sintex) & smart clothing (Hexoskin), truly innovative start-ups in the field of modern semiconductor process technology (VSParticle) and digitalization (Intervall) and highly renowned, scientific experts in measurement technology (Universität des Saarlandes), clinical neurophysiology (Universitätsklinikum Freiburg) and mental health (National Institute of Mental Health Czech Republic) – strengthening the market in the European Union.
11 Partners
Renowned partners from industry and academia.
5 Countries
Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, and the Netherlands.
36 Months
Project duration (2026–2028).
109 PY
More than 36 persons on average working for three years on this project.
11 partners from 5 countries collaborate in a joint effort.
Partners and associated partners in alphabetical order:
Connecting 4 Megatrends
Silver Society
The world is getting older, with people staying fit for longer. The Megatrend Silver Society describes the diverse impacts of this demographic change, which poses huge challenges for society but also opens up great opportunities for new socio-cultural vitality. To successfully manage the demographic transformation, new social and economic conditions and a new mindset towards aging are needed.
Health
The importance of health as a fundamental value has deeply ingrained itself in our consciousness in recent years and has become synonymous with high quality of life. As a central goal in life, this Megatrend shapes all aspects of life.
Artificial Intelligence
AI as a Megatrend is revolutionizing numerous fields by enhancing efficiency, personalization, and decision-making. Its application spans from autonomous vehicles and healthcare to smart homes and financial services. AI is not only a technical evolution but also presents significant ethical considerations concerning privacy, job displacement, and security.
Connectivity
The Megatrend Connectivity describes the dominant basic pattern of social change in the 21st century: the principle of networking based on digital infrastructure. Connected communication technologies are fundamentally changing our lives, work and economies. They reprogram sociocultural codes and bring forth new lifestyles, behavior patterns and business models.
4 Fields of Advanced Research
SensorTech4Health (ST4H) addresses major pain points of today's health products with innovative sensing solutions. By developing application-specific electronic components and intelligent systems, significant innovations become possible, first of all to the benefit of persons in need, but as well regarding societal aspects like cost-efficient health offerings.
Hearing
Support
Non-Intrusive
Home Care
Health
Monitoring
Sleep
Monitoring
Hearing Support
Status Quo
According to the World Report on Hearing (2021), approximately 20% of the world’s population is affected by a certain degree of untreated hearing loss, with age related hearing loss being associated to 8% of dementia cases. Without intervention, these numbers are expected to skyrocket in the years to come. While moderate to profound hearing loss can be treated with hearing aids, currently dominating the hearing support market, more severe impairments can be addressed with hearing implants.
However, the acceptance of current hearing implants is affected by a lack of awareness, fear of surgery and excessive costs of surgical procedures ranging from ~€ 38,000-110,000 per implantation in children. Which is why hearing aids dominate the market for hearing support. Moreover, even these devices, based on “simple” microphones, offer a sub-optimal amplification performance and, if at all, very rudimentary smart features, the latter tagged to very high prices (€ 1,400-8,000/pair). Increased penetration of fully implantable devices will eradicate the need of external microphones used in conventional hearing implants, thereby enabling “incognito” 24/7 hearing.
Research Goal
With ~20 million people worldwide relying on these technologies to reconnect with friends and family, the goal is to enter the emerging and fast-growing market of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids, integrated into more aesthetic and affordable wearable devices like earphones to ensure large scale benefits.
Currently limited in their capabilities, compared to medical grade devices, OTC hearing aids will tremendously benefit from increased sensitivity of microphones and state-of the-art ML and AI algorithms to implement context awareness, event identification and selective amplification/de-amplification- to significantly enhance the hearing outcomes and their overall acceptance.
Non-Intrusive Home Care
Status Quo
Context awareness holds great potential for home care applications by monitoring daily activities and behavior which is beneficial, for elderly care or improving general comfort and well-being. However, most available remote control and automated smart home devices lack intelligence, as the underlying computational models fail to combine different home devices or data sources.
Research Goal
To achieve reliable context awareness for non-intrusive home care, ST4H aims to use privacy-preserving embedded computations for sensor-data-fusion on gateway or distributed services to combine data from different sources.
Furthermore, ML/AI algorithms based on sensor-fused data will allow better discrimination of different contexts. Therefore, the overall goal is to develop privacy-compliant multi-modular devices empowered by advanced data-fusion for context awareness, taking AI-based home care to the next level.
Health Monitoring
Status Quo
Air pollution is one of the main environmental concerns in Europe and worldwide, with outdoor and indoor air quality (IAQ) contributing similarly to the overall burden of disease. Conventional health monitoring practices, primarily confined to clinical settings, cannot continuously monitor constantly fluctuating health states. However, with evolving technology, personal health monitoring using wearable devices has gained tremendous popularity as reflected by the number of smart-phone-based digital health apps (>350,000 worldwide).
Research Goal
According to the “Sensors and Actuators for Wearables Report 2023” (Yole Intelligence), four main technology trends are expected: (1) focus on sensor-data-fusion, (2) size and power reduction, (3) focus on non-invasive technologies and (4) increased penetration of MEMS technology in medical and consumer health applications.
Implementing all features within a single wearable device is a possibility, but for a more comprehensive health monitoring, ST4H aims at integrating newly developed sensors into a variety of wearable, bedside and smart home devices and coupling their signals (amid already existing sensors) to continuously monitor relevant biological and ambient parameters. Data on daytime activities can also be linked to sleep data for health monitoring, providing a more holistic picture of an individual’s well-being. The selective use of ML/AI can support recognition of anomalies in an individual’s health profile effectively supporting physicians under time pressure. This AI supported, fused picture of the individual will provide the medical professional community with a basis for health risk assessment and determination of actionable, ideally preventive measures for the individual.
Since health-related data is personal, data protection is a key and the devices need to be privacy compliant, a topic also within the focus of ST4H.
Sleep Monitoring
Status Quo
Sleep is vital component of general health and well-being. It is crucial for brain and overall physiological functions, impacting metabolism, appetite control, as well as the operation of immune, hormonal, and cardiovascular systems. Despite its relevance, up to ~45 million people in Europe suffer from a chronic sleep disorder influencing daily performance and health.
Monitoring daily sleep routines is therefore a direct gateway to monitoring personal health and well-being. Currently, consumer sleep monitoring is a feature mostly offered either in wearable devices or smart phone-based apps, each offering varying levels of accuracy in estimating sleep phases. Discomfort is limiting the acceptance of wearable devices during the night, making bedside devices a more viable alternative however, compromising accuracy.
Research Goal
ST4H plans to combine signals from microphones and gas sensors, integrated into wearable and bedside devices to monitor ambient conditions and human outgassing while sleeping, serving as additional health-related biomarkers. Such devices can be smart-phones, wearables removed for charging, including cases of earphones or hearing aids.
“Smart fabrics” is another unique solution that ST4H also focuses on incorporating MEMS sensor technology (like gas sensors) into textiles to create products like bed linen and mattresses, potentially acting as bedside devices for measuring skin outgassing.
Data on skin outgassing, when combined with other health-related data using ML-based sensor-data-fusion approach can be valuable for monitoring sleep quality as an indicator for personal health.
Project Partners
Bosch Sensortec GmbH
Bosch Sensortec GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Bosch GmbH, develops and markets a broad portfolio of MEMS sensors and solutions for applications in smartphones, tablets, wearables, AR/VR devices, drones, robots, smart homes and the Internet of Things.
With a focus on providing best-in-class sensor solutions in terms of customer focus, quality and reliability, performance, sustainability and competitiveness. Bosch Sensortec is one of the world's largest suppliers of sensor system solutions for complex functionality and high accuracy. Its technical expertise ranges from MEMS and ASIC design to complete sensor systems. The product portfolio includes 3-axis accelerometers, gyroscopes and geomagnetic sensors, integrated 6- and 9-axis sensors, environmental sensors, optical microsystems and associated software solutions.
Since its formation in 2005, Bosch Sensortec has become the technology leader in the CE markets it serves. Bosch has been a pioneer and world leader in MEMS technology since 1995.
| Country | Germany |
| Website | www.bosch-sensortec.com |
Carré Technologies Inc. (Hexoskin)
Carré Technologies Inc. (Hexoskin) is a private company founded in 2006 in Montreal, Canada. It is a leader in non-invasive sensors, software, data science, and artificial intelligence services. The company is headquartered in the Rosemont district of Montreal. Hexoskin provides solutions and services directly to clients, developers, researchers, and professionals in the pharmaceutical, academic, healthcare, defense, first responder, space, and aerospace industries.
Hexoskin has developed expertise in supporting clinical studies and research on the development of digital biomarkers. Also, Hexoskin has carried out several projects in artificial intelligence, including the SMDSS project funded by the Canadian Space Agency. SMDSS is a modular software solution that operates autonomously for deep space missions, exploiting the sensors of Hexoskin's smart garments, as well as other sensors and existing hardware, to provide a diagnostic framework capable of managing treatment plans and monitoring the health status of crew members autonomously. Through a continuous stream of data and sophisticated algorithms, SMDSS analyzes the health data of crew members, providing the flight surgeon with real-time information for proactive health management during space missions.
Hexoskin also provided its system as part of C2M2, a project in which the company participates with a consortium led by CGI to provide an integrated, scalable system of advanced medical technologies in a containerized deployable unit for space missions and in remote or difficult-to-access regions. The company also collaborates with private companies such as Novartis on machine learning and artificial intelligence projects.
| Country | Canada |
| Website | www.hexoskin.com |
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health (Czech Republic) is a centre for preclinical, clinical and socio-economic research focusing on neurobiological and psychosocial factors affecting mental health, including the prevention, onset and course of mental illnesses and their diagnosis. At the same time, NIMH is a teaching base for the Third Faculty of Medicine of Charles University for Psychiatry and Medical Psychology. The NIMH also provides inpatient and outpatient clinical care for patients with neuropsychiatric disorders and people with a wide range of sleep disorders.
| Country | Czech Republic |
| Website | www.nudz.cz |
PulseOn Oy
PulseOn is a health tech device manufacturer solving the problem of undiagnosed atrial fibrillation (AFib). A pioneer in optical heart rate (OHR) technology, PulseOn is a high-tech company specialized in arrhythmia detection devices and analysis software for professional medical use. PulseOn’s complete and connected end-to-end solution is based on unique expertise gained through vast research and development trying to solve the problem of the complexity to detect and monitor arrhythmias. PulseOn solution is changing the future with an easy-to-use solution driving significant improvements in diagnosis and cost burden. The company seeks to expand its offering and accelerate the development of medical grade sleep apnea screening and monitoring based on SpO2 with a wearable device. PulseOn is a privately owned company founded in 2012 and headquartered in Finland.
| Country | Finland |
| Website | www.pulseon.com |
Universitätsklinikum Freiburg
Universitätsklinikum Freiburg is a tertiary care university hospital with 2180 beds and nationally and internationally excellent research.The section of psychiatric sleep medicine at the University Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy is an accredited sleep lab with over 30 years of expertise in sleep disorder diagnostics and therapy. It is part of the Freiburg Center for Sleep Medicine, which also covers pediatric sleep and pulmonology, while the focus of the section of psychiatric sleep medicine is in the treatment of other sleep disorders, with the most prevalent being insomnia.
| Country | Germany |
| Website | www.uniklinik-freiburg.de |
VSParticle B.V
VSParticle is an equipment OEM supplying nanoparticle synthesis and deposition equipment based on a completely liquid-free (dry) process. VSParticle’s equipment enables manufacturing of nano-porous thin films suitable for a broad range of applications, including gas sensors, electrocatalysis and batteries. VSParticle’s equipment converts bulk materials (metals and semiconductors) into a nano-porous thin film in a single step, which significantly reduces the costs of producing these thin films. Because the process is liquid-free (no solvents required) it is more sustainable than existing processes and results in very pure (clean) and porous thin films, resulting in higher performance. Besides developing mass production equipment, VSParticle provides R&D equipment for the accelerated development of novel functional materials.
| Country | Netherlands |
| Website | vsparticle.com |
Robert Bosch GmbH
The Bosch Group is a leading global supplier of technology and services. It employs roughly 420,000 associates worldwide (as of December 31, 2022). According to preliminary figures, the company generated sales of 88.4 billion euros in 2022. Its operations are divided into four business sectors: Mobility Solutions, Industrial Technology, Consumer Goods, and Energy and Building Technology.
As a leading IoT provider, Bosch offers innovative solutions for smart homes, Industry 4.0, and connected mobility. Bosch is pursuing a vision of mobility that is sustainable, safe, and exciting. It uses its expertise in sensor technology, software, and services, as well as its own IoT cloud, to offer its customers connected, cross-domain solutions from a single source. The Bosch Group’s strategic objective is to facilitate connected living with products and solutions that either contain artificial intelligence (AI) or have been developed or manufactured with its help. Bosch improves quality of life worldwide with products and services that are innovative and spark enthusiasm. In short, Bosch creates technology that is “Invented for life.” The Bosch Group comprises Robert Bosch GmbH and its roughly 440 subsidiary and regional companies in some 60 countries. Including sales and service partners, Bosch’s global manufacturing, engineering, and sales network covers nearly every country in the world. The basis for the company’s future growth is its innovative strength. At 128 locations across the globe, Bosch employs some 85,000 associates in research and development, of which nearly 44,000 are software engineers.
At Bosch Research, we concentrate on six key areas: automation, digitalization and connectivity, artificial intelligence, electrification, climate action and sustainability and healthcare. The focus is on researching and developing new technologies and concepts to support the Bosch divisions in product development. Each of the nine research sites specializes in those research fields that match the scientific and technological profile of the particular region and the local Bosch divisions. The fact that the business units are heavily involved in our research projects allows close cooperation from basic research through to product development.
| Country | Germany |
| Website | www.bosch.com |
Cochlear Technology Centre Belgium
Cochlear has been leading the market in implantable hearing solutions for over the past 40 years. The company aims to deliver value by helping more people to hear, which contributes to building a healthier and more productive society. The company strategy is focused on improving awareness of and access to implantable hearing solutions for people indicated for Cochlear products.
Over the past 40 years Cochlear helped over 700,000 people to hear with one – or two – of our implantable solutions, delivering a lifetime of hearing solutions for recipients, with sound processor upgrades and services to support prior generation products
Cochlear pioneers and leads the development, manufacture and commercialisation of implantable hearing solutions, collaborating in over 100 research programs worldwide to further research into hearing loss. The company invests around 12% of sales revenue each year in research and development (R&D), with over $3 billion invested since listing, and has a portfolio of more than 2,300 patent and patent applications worldwide. The Cochlear Technology Centre in Belgium will be involved in SensorTech4Health. The CTCB group is part of the Cochlear R&D department, and houses the largest group of researchers outside of Australia.
| Country | Belgium |
| Website | www.cochlear.com |
Intervall Beratung GmbH
Intervall is a Stuttgart-based service provider in the field of digital product development. Our unique approach merges methods from design and computational thinking to conceptualize, design and implement (digital) products for our clients.
We have multi-year, multi-project experience with motion sensors and AI-enabled gas sensors. For our customer Bosch we developed BME AI-Studio, a full-blown software ecosystem around machine learning solutions for AI-enabled gas sensors. We also developed multiple AI-enabled gas sensor algorithms to detect indoor smoldering and wild fires as well as early prototypes for detecting sleep phases.
Our team consists of internal and external experts with deep knowledge in design and computation. In the field of AI our team has an interdisciplinary background from AI-enabled gas sensing to medical (radiologic) image classification to LIDAR-based automated driving and quantum physics.
Technologically, we use a variety of machine learning algorithms and tools – we are well-versed in both classic ML algorithms for classification and regression as well as deep neural networks. Our team is proficient in PyTorch, TensorFlow, Rust, and Wolfram Language, demonstrating our adaptability and commitment to using the best tools for each project. In addition, we do this by building automated machine learning pipelines. This includes complex model handling and advanced source code versioning, ensuring that our AI solutions are both robust and efficient.
We work with our customers on sustainable and long-term pre-development and research projects, building intensive and trusting relationships. Our reputation is based on in-depth expertise and a high level of innovation. Quality and reliability are decisive factors for us, as we build up new customers mainly through recommendations. We are flexible and can adapt quickly to specific customer needs and challenges.
| Country | Germany |
| Website | www.intervall.io |
Sintex, a.s.
SINTEX is Czech textile company. In the course of the years, it continuously expanded its service portfolio, focusing on new innovations and more benefits for its customers. As a result, SINTEX has become not only a market leader in the Czech Republic, but also a preferred partner for customers all over Europe. Today, the Czech company’s service portfolio comprises the production of fabrics (knitted and woven fabrics) and ready-to-wear-clothes. In addition to manufacturing according to customer requirements, SINTEX has an extensive experience and long tradition in research and development in the field of textile products. SINTEX took part as coordinator or investigator in many national and international projects. R&D represents approximately 10% of company’s activities. Research and development activities are concentrated in Technical Department and comprise research and development of textile materials, structures and verification of textile processing technologies; participation in research and development projects leading to the production of new and highly functional textiles.
The major part of SINTEX product portfolio is dedicated to sport knits and functional clothing with specific properties. SINTEX also produce a broad range of protection textiles such as heat resistant, fireproof, antistatic, and antibacterial. SINTEX has an accredited textile laboratory (accredited according to ČSN EN ISO / IEC 17025) that ensures evaluation a very broad range of physical, mechanical, chemical, colour and electrostatic properties of all kinds of textile materials.
| Country | Czech Republic |
| Website | www.sintex.cz |
Saarland University
USAAR will focus on measuring VOC emitted from skin at low concentrations with high selectivity with novel gas sensing layers and advanced operating modes. Additional research will address multimodal sensor fusion based on AI and ML. Novel information from skin emissions together with vital parameters from existing sensors in wearable devices will allow a reliable estimate of well-being.
University
Saarland University was founded in 1948 as a bilingual university under the auspices of the French government. The university has earned an international reputation for its research in computer science and informatics and for work in the life sciences and nanosciences. The university is distinguished by its close ties to France and its strong European focus. With its pronounced international focus and its strong ties to universities in Europe and around the world, Saarland University is more international than almost any other medium-sized German university. A distinctive feature of Saarland University is the broad range of cross-border academic programmes that lead to a double-degree qualification or even to a triple-degree qualification if a third foreign partner institution is involved. Many of the university departments collaborate closely with one another in both teaching and research. Close cooperative ties also connect Saarland University's scientists and researchers with universities around the world as well as with the many external research institutes located on and around the Saarbrücken campus. All of the major German scientific organizations are represented on campus, including two institutes of the Max Planck Society, two institutes within the Leibniz Association, two Fraunhofer institutes of applied research, a Helmholtz research centre and a Helmholtz institute.
Lab for Measurement Technology
Our research is focused on smart sensor systems for the measurement of chemical quantities as well as for industrial process monitoring. In the field of chemical sensors, we address gas and liquid phase and utilize both chemical and physical effects. We combine (micro) sensors with microelectronics for operation and read-out as well as with application-specific signal processing concepts to realize complex measurement systems. A specific focus topic is the development of automatable methods of machine learning in order to extract the desired, physically interpretable information from complex sensor patterns. Main areas of application are quality control, environmental and safety technology, renewable energy / energy efficiency and condition monitoring of mechatronic systems.
| Country | Germany |
| Website | www.lmt.uni-saarland.de |