New XeCS research project SensorTech4Health launched

Continuous monitoring of indoor air to assess health and wellbeing, smart sheets that monitor sleep quality and miniaturized hearing aids – international partners in academia and industry are collaborating on the SensorTech4Health project to develop novel technology that monitors the surrounding environment to continuously gauge health. Whether integrated into a smart home system or as a discreet wearable, these new technologies aim to monitor health and wellbeing and increase quality of life.

Against the backdrop of an ageing population and high care costs, the project sets out to use prevention to help people remain fit and independent for longer. Bosch Sensortec is coordinating the project, which has received 15 million euros from national funding organizations within the EUREKA Cluster Xecs.

Gas sensors find single molecules among billions

One of the main goals of the project is to support health and well-being using novel gas sensor technologies. The researchers are making use of a particular phenomenon in the body to do so. 'The body is constantly producing metabolic products that are released into the environment through the skin and breath,' explains Christian Bur, the postdoc who leads the medical gas sensor research team in Andreas Schütze's measurement technologies research group at Saarland University. The molecular compounds that the body releases into the air have distinctive characteristics, yet we are not usually able to smell them. Bur develops gas sensor systems that can take exact measurements of these volatile organic compounds. 

SensorTech4Health Consortium joint press release

More on SensorTech4Health project

The SensorTech4Health project brings together partners from academia and industry in the field of digital health. The international collaboration has received 15 million euros of funding from national agencies within the EUREKA Cluster Xecs. German project partners received funding from the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space through VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH.