A health technology startup building a wearable device to monitor heart and lung health was awarded Defense Innovation Award at the Defense Techconnect Innovation Summit & Expo.
StethX Microsystems, founded in January 2019 and based on research at the Georgia Institute of Technology, is developing and seeking to commercialize a wearable, micro-sized, telehealth heart, and lung monitoring patch.
A startup in the Advanced Technology Development Center’s ATDC Accelerate portfolio, the company’s technology allows for remote monitoring of cardiopulmonary rhythms using a proprietary acoustic sensor.
The company was co-founded by Farrokh Ayazi, a professor and director of the Georgia Tech Analog Consortium in Tech’s School of Electrical Engineering, and Chris Heaton, a serial entrepreneur.
“This is an important recognition for us because it gives us access to a wider audience of medical health professionals within the U.S. Department of Defense and insight into other medical services the DOD and specialists in cardiopulmonary healthcare,” Heaton said. “This helps us better understand how we can work and partner with them to solve heart and lung monitoring challenges using telehealth.”
The annual Defense TechConnect (DTC) Summit, co-located with the Fall SBIR/STTR Innovation Summit, brings together defense, private industry, federal agency, and academic leadership to accelerate state-of-the-art technology solutions for soldiers and national security.
The SteathX Microsystems technology has military applications in that it can provide continuous cardiopulmonary health monitoring of soldiers and fighter pilots, including early detection of respiratory failure, comprehensive analysis of cardiac health, and detection of internal injuries due to combat-related thoracic trauma (CRTT).
It also has other potential applications, too, such as improving positional accuracy and soldier tracking, use as a high-fidelity covert listening device, and speech recognition in noisy environments, Heaton said.