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Intelligent wearable system with accurate detection of abnormal gait and timely cueing for mobility enhancement of people with Parkinson’s disease

The entire world, approximately ten million people have Parkinson’s disease (PD), which is the second most popular neurodegenerative disease. The most distinct symptoms of PD are movement ("motor") related. Previously reported wearable systems for people with Parkinson’s disease (PD) have been focused on the detection of abnormal gait. They suffered from limited accuracy, large latency, poor durability, comfort, and convenience for daily use. Herewith an intelligent wearable system (IWS) was interdisciplinary research by Prof. Xiaoming TAO and Prof. Margaret Mak, which can accurately detect abnormal gait in real-time and provide timely cueing for PD patients. The system features novel sensitive, comfortable and durable plantar pressure sensing insoles with a highly compressed data set, an accurate and fast gait algorithm, and wirelessly controlled timely sensory cueing devices. A total of 29 PD patients participated in the first phase without cueing for developing processes of the algorithm, which achieved an accuracy of over 97% for off-line detection of freezing of gait (FoG). In the second phase with cueing, the evaluation of the whole system was conducted with 16 PD subjects via trial and a questionnaire survey. This system demonstrated an accuracy of 94% for real-time detection of FoG and a mean latency of 0.37 s between the onset of FoG and cueing activation. In the questionnaire survey, 88% of the PD participants confirmed that this wearable system could effectively enhance walking, 81% thought that the system was comfortable and convenient, and 70% overcame the FoG. Therefore, the IWS makes it an effective, powerful, and convenient tool for enhancing the mobility of people with PD. The research was recently published in Wearable Technologies.

Prof. Zijian ZHENG Introduced a New Kind of Liquid-metal Fibre Mat at Now TV

Professor Zijian Zheng was interviewed by Now TV earlier, he introduced a new type of liquid-metal fibre mat developed by his team. The material is highly permeable and super elastic, which can be used for wearable electronic devices. Prof. Zheng expressed his hope in this research is to assist in athletes’ training and the medical field in the future.

RI-IWEAR Members Won Two Awards at TechConnect World Innovation 2022

Prof. Hong HU, Dr Dahua SHOU and Prof. Jintu FAN, members of Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems (RI-IWEAR), won two prestigious global innovation awards in the areas of materials science and biotechnology at the TechConnect World Innovation Conference and Expo 2022 - the world’s largest multi-sector event for fostering the development and commercialisation of innovations.   The award-winning innovations include a new type of more environment-friendly moisture-absorbing and sweat-releasing fabric and an automatic temperature-controllable mask. Details are as follows: Moisture-Absorbing and Sweat-Releasing Multilayer Polylactic Acid Fabric and Manufacturing Technology (Prof. HU Hong, Institute of Textiles and Clothing) The new fabric stands out from existing moisture-absorbing fabric technology in that its fabrication technique is simpler, cheaper, and more environment-friendly. By employing double weft knitting technology, it only takes one single manufacturing process to produce the new fabric structure with improved moisture-absorbing and sweat-releasing properties. It also has inherent biological resistance and is ideal for use in school uniforms and sportswear. Omni-Cool-Breath: A Smart Air-Conditioned Mask (Dr SHOU Dahua, Professor FAN Jintu and Dr HUANG Guanghan, Institute of Textiles and Clothing) Omni-Cool-Breath is the first automatic temperature-controllable mask that brings revolutionary access to all-day cool breath and thermal comfort under various activities and thermal conditions. It reduces temperature by 12°C and humidity by 65% under low voltage via an innovative miniature thermoelectric cooling system. The ergonomically designed lightweight mask uses skin-friendly and biodegradable 3D printing materials that enable the user to enjoy nine hours of clean air.   For more information of the TechConnect 2022 Innovation Awardees, please visit the official website: https://www.techconnectworld.com/World2022/participate/innovation/awards.html

Professor Feng YAN’s Team Develops Ultrasensitive and Portable Detection Sensor for Rapid, Easy and Low-cost COVID-19 Antibody Test

Professor Feng YAN’s team has successfully developed an ultrasensitive and portable COVID-19 antibody detection sensor based on organic electrochemical transistor (OECT) technology. Fast and easy-to-use, the sensor is designed for testing the antibody levels of people who have either received vaccination or have been infected with the virus.   The whole detection process, which uses saliva sample instead of only blood, takes less than six minutes and the cost per test is only about HK$10. The antibody detection sensor can test the concentration of antibodies from lower than 10fM to higher than 100nM. The detection limit satisfies the needs of exquisite analytical sensitivity for saliva.   Professor YAN said that since the detection process is non-invasive, self-sampling is highly possible. Moreover, the operation and result reading are very simple with the use of a smartphone, and hence the sensor is suitable for instant detection and large-scale screening scenarios.   The next plan of the research team is to apply for funding for clinical studies in collaboration with different medical and testing institutions. They expect that the novel device can be commercialised as soon as practicable and applied for antibody detection of other viruses. 

Dr Ning LI Visited PolyU for Cooperation

Dr Ning LI, Chairman of Li-Ning Company Limited, visited PolyU on 5th May 2022 to seek further cooperation with PolyU. Li-Ning Company Limited is a famous Chinese sportswear and sports equipment company founded in 1989 by Ning LI, a former Chinese Olympic gymnast.   Professor Xiaoming TAO, Director of RI-IWEAR, Professor Jintu FAN, Professor Li LI, and Dr Tracy MOK, members of RI-IWEAR gave introductions on the research related to sportswear and health care for sportsmen, displayed the examples of the latest textile technology, and demonstrated the monitoring and rehabilitation technology for the sportsman, respectively.   Dr Ning LI detailed consulted on the relevant technical requirements and the possible development directions. The whole process of technology introduction and demonstration was broadcasted to the R & D team of Li-Ning Company Limited at the same time. This is communication for research and development knowledge transfer.

Chairman Ning LI, Founder of a Famous Chinese Sportswear and Sports Equipment Company, Visited PolyU

Dr Ning LI, Chairman of Li-Ning Company Limited, visited PolyU on 28th April 2022. Li-Ning Company Limited is a famous Chinese sportswear and sports equipment company founded in 1989 by Ning LI, a former Chinese Olympic gymnast. Professor Xiaoming TAO gave an introduction to the research and development knowledge transfer of the Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems.

Scalable Production of Ultrafine Polyaniline Fibres for Wearable Electronics

High performance conducting polymer fibres are highly demanded in fields from advanced fibrous devices to frontier fabric electronics. Recently, a joint research team, led by Prof. Xiaoming TAO and Dr Yang CHAI, reported a scalable good solvent exchange strategy to produce ultrafine polyaniline (PAni) fibres. This work was published at Nature Communications. The first authors are Dr. Fang Bo and Mr. Jianmin Yan.   Processing conducting polymers into macroscopically fibrous materials makes it possible to translate their nano-object features to human-friendly products in a continuous manner. Primarily due to the large diameters, the performance and expectations of most achieved continuous conducting polymer fibres (CPFs) have been limited by their insufficient electroactive surfaces and weak tensile strength. Tao’s group report a good solvent exchange strategy in a modified wet spinning technique to prepare the ultrafine PAni fibres (UFPFs) at the large scale. Beyond conventional wet spinning protocol, they replaced poor solvents by good solvents as the coagulation bath to decrease the viscosity of gel protofibres, which were subject to an ultrahigh drawing ratio and reduced to an ultrafine morphology. In the modified one-step wet spinning process, they used good solvents as the coagulation bath to realize the mass production of UFPFs. A decreasing of diameter from ~0.1 mm to ~4.7 µm was observed, which is a record small value in the achieved wet-spun CPFs. The ultrafine fibre shows a smooth surface, highly crystallized microstructures, and uniform electrical properties. Moreover, such an impressive drawing ratio enables a very high production efficiency of UFPFs beyond 40 meters per minute.   UFPFs show impressive mechanical performance and energy storage abilities. UFPFs have a modulus of 29.89±5.6 GPa, and a strength of 1080±71 MPa, at least one order of magnitude higher than that of CPFs with larger diameters. They used polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-H3PO4 gel electrolyte and two UFPF electrodes to construct a micro capacitor to evaluate the electrochemical activity of UFPFs. The area capacitance is between 1008 and 1666 mF cm-2 at the current densities between 0.32 and 3.18 mA cm-2, outperforming previously reported thick CPFs and other electrodes, and approaching to that of PAni nanowires. Benefitting from the favorable energy and charge storage performance of UFPFs, they demonstrated a high-performance all-solid organic electrochemical transistor (OECT), which is very soft, and shows favorable amplification performance with a high on-off current ratio (103) at low voltages (

Dr Dahua SHOU appointed as Limin Endowed Young Scholar in Advanced Textiles Technologies

Congratulation to Dr Dahua Shou, member of the Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems was appointed as Limin Endowed Young Scholar in Advanced Textiles Technologies. An awardee of many prestigious awards, including TechConnect Global Innovation Awards for two consecutive years and those conferred by the International Exhibition of Inventions of Geneva, Dr Shou has published over 60 SCI papers in impactful journals such as Science Advances, PNAS, Advanced Energy Materials, and Advanced Functional Materials. Currently he serves on the editorial boards of four SCI journals and is a lead guest editor for several SCI journals.   The Limin Endowed Young Scholar in Advanced Textiles Technologies is donated by Dr Harry LEE, Chairman of TAL Apparel Limited and member of the Industrial Advisory Committee for RI-IWEAR.   Click the link for more information of the Endowed Young Scholars Scheme.

Important Progress in Efficient and Scalable Moisture-Electric Generators Made from Ionic Hydrogel

In the context of global resource shortage and high demand for carbon neutrality, it is of great significance to find simple and efficient green energy conversion technology to achieve sustainable development of energy and society. Moisture-electric generator (MEG) is based on the chemical energy from atmospheric moisture to generate electricity directly, without the generation of pollutants and harmful gas emissions, which is an emerging research focus in the energy field. However, most MEGs suffer from intermittent electrical signals and low current. In addition, the realization of large-scale integration and practical applications is still the bottleneck of current research. To address this issue, Prof. Tao’s research team have developed a novel and efficient ionic hydrogel moisture-electric generator (IHMEG), which converts the chemical energy released by captured moisture in the air into electricity, realizing efficient current density and power output. A single IHMEG unit of 0.25 cm2 can continuously generate direct-current electricity with a constant open-circuit voltage of ~0.8 V for over 1000 hours, a high short-current density of 0.24 mA·cm-2 and power density of up to 35 mW·cm-2. Of great importance is that large-scale integration of IHMEG units can be readily accomplished to offer a high voltage of up to 210 V, making the flexible IHMEG assembly capable of directly driving numerous commercial electronics, including electronic ink screen, metal electrodeposition setup and even light-emitting-diode arrays. This IHMEG device with high cost-efficiency, easy-to-scaleup fabrication and high power-output opens a brand-new perspective to develop a green, versatile and efficient power source for Internet-of-Things and wearable electronics. The work is published in Advanced Materials (https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.202200693) recently. The first author is a PhD graduate, Dr. Yang Su.

Research Excellence: Auxetic Textiles

Auxetic textiles, a category of fiber-based materials that possesses nonconventional properties including double curved shape under bending, high indentation resistance, high energy and vibration absorption capabilities, have been widely applied in in garments for such functions as impact protection, medical care and smart wearable devices, and so forth.   Having a negative Poisson's ratio, auxetic textiles tend to expand in all directions when stretched and shrink when compressed, hence enabling high level of comfortability and flexibility, as well as possibilities when applied in clothing design.   Prof. Hu Hong from the Institute of Textiles and Clothing, member of Research Institute for Intelligent Wearable Systems, has successfully invented a series of auxetic materials, including auxetic yarns, auxetic fabrics and auxetic textile composites by altering the structures of fibers using different types of textile technologies including yarn spinning, knitting, weaving and braiding.   As the newly invented auxetic materials were originated from the laboratory, challenges were found in the initial stage of the real manufacturing environment. The lack of equipment to produce commercial auxetic materials, which have a more complex fiber assemble structure, had inspired Prof. Hu to develop new equipment himself.   Also, the manufacturing processes for his new invention had to be specially designed as there had been no similar process that could be referenced. The limited production capability in the initial stage has led to shortage of supply of usable auxetic textiles, restricting mass production of commercial end-use products.   The research team is gaining experience in auxetic textiles production, commercialization of more high quality auxetic textiles has been made available, and Prof. Hu's inventions have been applied in medical care, sports, functional and protective clothing, and wearable technology, etc.