'Doctor on a chip' may revolutionize battlefield medicine

17 Jun 2002

A chip that fits your fingertip may someday measure and transmit your body temperature when you're ill. An array of chips attached to your body may obtain and send additional information on your blood pressure, oxygen level and pulse rate to your doctor miles away.

Such "medical telesensors"-- application-specific integrated circuits that measure vitalsigns, process the data and transmit it as radio signals to a remote receiver-- are being developed at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory for military troops in combat zones.

A group led by ORNL researcher Tom Ferrell has built a temperature sensor 2.3 millimeters on a side (about one-eighth the size of a postage stamp). The chip can beattached to a finger or placed in an ear. There, it can measurebody temperature and transmit a reading when queried by a remotereceiver.