Rice, Methodist and TFA receive $1.5 million NSF grant to study in-home health management and next-generation wireless networks

CONTACT: Jade Boyd
PHONE: 713-348-6778
E-MAIL: jadeboyd@rice.edu

The National Science Foundation has awarded $1.5 million to a Rice-led research team for the expansion of a wireless research network and the design and testing of experimental mobile systems and health-monitoring devices in East Houston’s working-class Pecan Park neighborhood. The five-year project is a collaboration of researchers from Rice, The Methodist Hospital Research Institute and nonprofit Technology For All (TFA).

The researchers will examine how patients with chronic diseases can use next-generation wireless networks, cell phones and health sensors to participate in their own medical treatment. The project brings together Rice experts in wireless network and mobile computing, community experts from TFA and health-care experts from Methodist and the University of Houston’s Abramson Center for the Future of Health.

Part of the grant will pay for the expansion of TFA-Wireless, an experimental wireless network that was designed and built by the research group of the project lead and principal investigator Edward Knightly, professor in electrical and computer engineering at Rice. The network uses new technology that’s more efficient and less costly to operate than the WiFi gear used in Internet cafes, airports and coffeehouses.

“Our network is a first-of-its-kind research platform,” said Knightly. “We are supporting more than 4,000 users in three square kilometers with a fully programmable custom wireless network. This allows us to demonstrate our research advances at an operational scale.”

Co-principal investigator Lin Zhong, assistant professor in electrical and computer engineering, said the new grant will also fund the construction of experimental mobile devices that lay the foundation for long-term field studies in the community.

“My group is interested in how mobile devices like cell phones can provide IT access to underserved communities, particularly when they are coupled with low-cost wireless broadband networks like the one Ed’s group has developed,” Zhong said.

Under the new grant, the Abramson Center will develop wireless sensors for chronic-illness care in collaboration with the Rice team. Using the sensors, patients with congestive heart failure, asthma or metabolic syndrome will be able to painlessly and noninvasively take stock of several key aspects of their health status on a daily basis. For example, an early design, called Blue Box, can compare current readings with a patient’s history and provide immediate, user-friendly feedback. By taking medical readings every day, rather than only during physician visits or crises, researchers hope to manage chronic conditions more effectively.

Principal investigator Clifford Dacso, chair of internal medicine at The Methodist Hospital said, “Combining the Blue Box technology with an existing wireless network is designed to allow people with chronic illnesses to fine-tune their health, thus avoiding preventable deterioration that may result in emergency care. It’s much easier on the patient and provides them with higher quality, very personal care.” Dacso is also executive director of the Abramson Center, which is a collaboration between The Methodist Hospital Research Institute and the University of Houston’s College of Technology.

Construction on TFA-Wireless began in 2003. Knightly’s graduate student Joseph Camp led the effort to design and build the network, which is a model for how broadband wireless Internet may one day be provided to whole cities.

“When we started this project with Dr. Knightly, we had no idea that it would lead medical researchers, anthropologists and others scientists to take such a keen interest in Pecan Park,” said TFA President and CEO Will Reed. “Our community isn’t the typical well-to-do neighborhood where this kind of technology would typically be rolled out. As a result, people are knocking down our door to find out how our residents are using the network, what they think of it and how it’s affecting them.”

The networking technology that makes this possible is the multitier, multihop, wireless “mesh” networking technology used by TFA-Wireless. The network has dozens of interconnected wireless transmitters throughout the neighborhood that allow anyone with a wireless-enabled computer or a cell phone access the Internet.

When TFA-Wireless users log in, they connect to one of the wireless transmitters in the neighborhood. These transmitters, which are called “nodes,” pass information between one another, relaying all data to and from a central hub. The term “mesh” refers to the fact that data sometimes uses multiple wireless relays, hopping from node to node before finding its way to the wired hub.