Research and Innovation
COMFORT
Complex Fracture Orthopaedic Rehabilitation COMFORT: Specific indications and techniques for fracture treatment have been developed over the past decades, resulting in improved healing rates. However, healing rates are largely based upon radiographic healing and clinical healing, where clinical healing is defined as pain free weight bearing. Surprisingly little information beyond this definition is available. The project aims to develop and implement a ground-breaking new fully integrated biofeedback technique for measurement of muscle mass, bone quality and loading patterns of the injured limb. The project is funded by Horizon 2020, Eurostars.
BDAS
The Bone Mineral Density Analysis System BDAS, research project is centered on the clinical activity of craniofacial surgery related to Craniosynostosis. Craniosynostosis is a medical condition where skull plates of new born fuses prematurely leaving limited volume for brain growth. This creates building up of intracranial pressure resulting in complications such as abnormal head shape, visual impairment, and development disability. Craniotomy is a surgical intervention adopted as part of craniosynostosis treatment. Defects of various size and shapes are made in the skull and these defects are healed gradually. The project includes the development and application of a new technology to monitor bone formation that will be directly applicable by providing facile readouts without sacrificing animals. The project is funded by Swedish research funding fron Vinnova.
IN-BAN
Intra-Body Area Networks IN-BAN: The human body can act as a medium for the electromagnetic waves transmission in Wireless Body Sensor Networks (WBSNs). However, the biological tissues will have power losses due to the different thicknesses in combinations of tissue in human body composition. This project focuses on lateral intra body communication and the effect of the biological tissue thicknesses by comparing the signal coupling power in the channel. A communication channel through the adipose tissue will largely benefit in procuring physiological data from patients suffering from diabetes, renal failures etc and also in establishing future high data rate man-machine interfaces. The research is funded by Olle Engkvist foundation.


Meet the team
Prof. Robin Augustine
Associate Professor, MMG Group leader and Principal Investigator

Dr. Augustine graduated in Electronics Science from Mahatma Gandhi University, India in 2003. He received Master’s degree in Electronics from Cochin University of Science and Technology India in 2005. Received Doctoral degree in Electronics and Optic Systems from Univerisité Paris Est Marne La Vallée, France in July 2009. His thesis topic was “Electromagnetic modelling of human tissues and its application on the interaction between antenna and human body in the BAN context”. He was the recipient of UGCRFSMS fellowship for meritorious students from Indian government and EGIDE Eiffel grant for excellence from French research ministry in 2006 and 2008 respectively. He is author or co-author of more than 70 publications including journals and conferences. He received Best Paper Award at 2013 European Conference on Antennas and Propagation, EuCAP, Gothenburg, Sweden. His current research field includes designing of wearable antennas, BMD Sensors, Dielectric characterization, Bioelectromagnetics, Non-invasive Diagnostics, biological effects of millimetre waves, RF backscattering, NDEs and RF in MRI with emphasis on in-vitro studies. He has received Carl Trygger and Olle Engqvist Fundings for Post-Docs. He is Project co-ordinator for Indo-Swedish Vinnova project BDAS and for Swedish part of the bilateral (The Netherlands and Sweden) project COMFORT. In February 2016 he became Docent (Associate Professor) at UU. He was also part of Vinnova project on the development of Skin cancer diagnostic tool based on micromachined interface for high-resolution THz spectroscopy (MTSSC).
Mr. Syaiful Redzwan Mohd Shah
PhD Student

Mr. Redzwan is pursuing his research in the MMG and is involved in the development of wireless medical sensors for assessing osteogenesis in cranial vaults created as part of craniosynostosis intervention. . The research comprises the design, implementation and evaluation of proof-of-concept prototypes of microwave and THz front-ends and receivers serving primarily for biomedical applications and high-resolution radar and telecommunication as secondary applications. This is done in association with industrial and medical project partners from Sweden and The Netherlands. The work will also involve fabrication and evaluation of antenna structures designed by partners for THz near field imaging. Clean room will be utilized as part of micro fabrication process. Fabrication will also include test structures to analyze dielectric properties of subcellular materials such as micro tubules(MT) thus tracing right bio- markers for accurate medical diagnosis.
Mr. Marco Raaben
Co-advised PhD Student, UMC Utrecht, The Netherlands

Mr. Raaben is working with MMG in the study and development of sensors to optimize weight bearing in trauma patients to recover faster from lower extremity fractures.
Dr. Sujith Raman
Post-Doc, Alumni

Dr. Raman has been working in MMG since 2014. MMG is continuing collaborations with Dr. Raman in the development of non-invasive sensors for assessing burn depth at burn centers in Uppsala and Lubeck, Germany.
Mrs. Noor Badariah Binti Asan (Ida)
PhD Student

Ida’s research is focused on techniques to make wireless sensor nodes in the scenario of Internet of Things battery-less and hence practical. The research will lead to development of novel techniques for energy harvesting. The energy harvesting will include wireless interface techniques for backscatter solutions.
Mrs. Parul Mathur
Co-advised PhD student, Amrita University, Bangalore, India

Mrs. Mathur associates with MMG in the development of an efficient portable, wireless, cost effective embedded system for orthopaedic disorder diagnosis which allows for easy monitoring and can be used in rehabilitation compared to the existing conventional methods such as X-ray, MRI and Ultrasound. Her research is is structured in the context of the BDAS project.
Dr. Mauricio David Perez
Collaborating Post-Doc, National Technical University, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Dr. Perez is involved in the development of numerical models of range of physiological targets. The focus is to facilitate efficient sensor design with increased sensitivity and specificity.
Mr. Jacob Velander
PhD Student

Mr. Velander is developing a portable device for measuring bone mineral density (BMD) as part of your PhD research. The reference data for the portable device will be based on scattering parameter measurements done during cranial surgery and its rehabilitation phase using a Vector Network Analyzer (VNA). The building blocks of the device include monostatic RADAR technology to generate and capture modulated pulse signals, down coversion of radio frequency (RF) band into baseband, analog to digital conversion of baseband signals and digital signal processing. The research componets in the proposed project involves: 1. Radio front-end architecture, 2. Signal processing techniques, 3. System miniaturization.
Mr. Doojin Lee
Co-supervised PhD Student, GIST, Gwangju, Republic of Korea

Mr. Lee develops Microwave Probes for sensing the changes that may occur in the artificial bone material implanted in fracture sites to have a direct indication of the healing process. By using Microwaves one avoids the risks that would exist in the use of X-rays for monitoring of the healing process.
Läggerhydsvägen 1, Solid State Electronics Division, Uppsala University Uppsala, SE-75121, Sweden
