WULPUS: a Wearable Ultra Low-Power Ultrasound probe for multi-day monitoring of carotid artery and muscle activity

Abstract

Ultrasound (US) is a promising tool for non-invasive, continuous monitoring of deep and superficial human body structures. Recent research advances demonstrated the applicability of A-mode US for blood flow monitoring, prostheses control, and muscle activity classification. However, despite the growing interest and progress in wearable US, existing commercial and academic research platforms do not yet offer all the key functionalities and performance metrics for wearable, configurable continuous monitoring of physiological parameters, at the same time offering access to raw data (to sustain the development of novel machine learning approaches on heterogeneous US applications). To overcome these limitations, we present WULPUS, a truly wearable ultra-low-power US open research platform. WULPUS consumes less than 25 mW, comes in a compact design (46×25 mm, 13 g), and offers an energy-efficient wireless communication link (Bluetooth low-energy) to commodity devices. The probe features 8 time-multiplexed channels, supports up to 50 Hz frame rate (FR), and provides access to raw US data, facilitating algorithm development for automated analysis.