Novel Micro Sensors and Estimation Algorithms for Physiological Measurements

This talk will describe the development of micro sensors and estimation algorithms for a number of interesting medical applications. Ultra small sensors are developed and evaluated for the estimation of muscle forces in neuromuscular diseases. Novel sensors are developed for in-vivo measurement of normal and shear elastic properties in tissues. Battery-less wireless force sensors that utilize piezoelectric energy generation are developed for knee replacement implants. Inductive coupling with a nonlinear adaptive observer is used to enable a battery-less wireless acoustic sensor. In each medical application, the talk will describe the novelty of the sensing technique, development of estimation algorithms, sensor fabrication and experimental results.

Dr. Rajamani obtained his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of California at Berkeley in 1991 and 1993 respectively and his B.Tech degree from the Indian Institute of Technology at Madras in 1989. Dr. Rajamani is currently Professor of Mechanical Engineering and a Senior Affiliate Faculty in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. His active research interests include sensors, control systems and estimation for biomedical and automotive applications. Dr. Rajamani has authored over 75 journal publications and is a co-inventor on 7 patent applications. He has been a recipient of the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, the 2001 Outstanding Paper award from the journal IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, the Ralph Teetor Award from SAE, and the 2007 O. Hugo Schuck Award from the American Automatic Control Council.