The collaborative project focuses on the deployment of a complete, scalable, multi-tiered and integrated wireless mobile infrastructure at urban scale that addresses: 1. at-scale design and evaluation of network protocols; and 2. the compilation and analysis of medical health data collected via the integration of medical health sensors into the wireless network. This collaborative project team will develop, deploy, and operate an information technology infrastructure that serves as a platform for research and societal change. The key innovations of this project and platform are: 1. A multi-tier wireless access network with fully programmable and observable nodes that serves 4,000 users over 4 km2 (an at-scale density surpassing existing deployments), 2. A fully instrumented and deployed mobile computing platform that enables joint assessment of user behavior and end system performance, providing energy-efficient and user-friendly access to the network, and 3. A deployed wireless health-sensing platform that monitors and processes physiological data and seamlessly interconnects it with the mobile-computing and wireless network platforms to enable radically new low-cost treatments for chronic diseases.
The research infrastructure will be deployed in an under-resourced area, Pecan Park, a community in the heart of Southeast Houston with 4,760 residents per km2, a density that is unprecedented for research and has not been reached even by commercial mesh deployments. This scale provides a replicable and sustainable template of what is possible in similar communities world-wide. The infrastructure serves as both a platform for societal change and a platform for research innovation and proof-of-concept system design.
Congestive heart failure (CHF) is a chronic medical condition for which early detection can lead to lifesaving results. As a second iteration of the Blue Box CHF monitoring device, Blue Scale provides daily heart health monitoring for potential detection of an impending cardiac event. Our Blue Scale studies will yield low-cost preventive healthcare for the under-resourced and underinsured or uninsured communities. Our wireless network infrastructure in the underserved Pecan Park neighborhood has enabled discovery, learning, and innovation; and lessening of the digital divide. The research team’s deployment of the Blue Box wireless health-sensing platform focuses on the underserved and underinsured. Our project’s research findings impact areas spanning wireless networking to usability of technology for elderly and underserved populations to the social sciences. The data sets and findings have been presented to and have implications for multiple disciplines including healthcare, health sensing and wireless computing. We have deployed scales in multiple environments (including individual homes, neighborhood centers, and institutions) and collected regular measurements from patients of many demographics at Rice University and in the Pecan Park/Technology for All community, an under-resourced and primarily Hispanic community. We have also provided research training for undergraduate students, graduate students, and post graduate research fellows.
