Rockley Photonics launches collaboration to develop health monitoring sensors

12 Nov 2021

Combining advanced sensors and AI; partners include Caltech’s Sensing to Intelligence (S2I) Center.

Rockley’s “clinic-on-wrist” smartphone app conveys health insights.

Rockley Photonics, a developer of photonics-based health monitoring and communications solutions, has announced a new research collaboration focused on the development of solutions that combine advanced sensors with artificial intelligence. The collaboration includes Caltech’s Sensing to Intelligence Center (S2I).

The S2I Center seeks to bring together two typically isolated disciplines — the field of sensing and imaging and the field of computation and algorithms — by adopting a holistic, interdisciplinary approach. The goal of bringing these two fields together is to develop more powerful and intelligent sensing systems. That aligns with Rockley’s approach to health and wellness monitoring, which combines photonics-based sensor technologies with artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics.

‘Integrated spectrometer’ planned

Through its investment in S2I (the details of which are no specified), Rockley plans to support a range of projects, including the development of new integrated spectrometer technologies using advanced photonics sensors. Researchers in the S2I center will explore and further analyze the relationship between spectral data and individual biomarkers to broaden and enhance the health monitoring capabilities and will utilize Rockley’s platform in the process.

Rockley Photonics and Caltech have collaborated previously on research projects including co-packaged optics and the co-design and integration of advanced photonics and electronics. This new agreement deepens an already strong association.

Dr. Andrew Rickman, CEO and founder of Rockley Photonics, commented, “Caltech has a strong history of supporting the development of health-related technologies, including Professor Arnold Beckman’s invention of the DU spectrophotometer, which was hailed as perhaps the most important instrument ever developed toward the advancement of bioscience.

“This new partnership will combine our experience building Rockley’s unique biomarker sensing platform, which incorporates a spectrophotometer-on-a-chip, with Caltech’s extensive research capabilities. We are happy to be working with Caltech once again to push the boundaries of bioscience even further.”

The scope of the partnership with S2I involves multiple Caltech divisions and departments, including Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, Medical Engineering, Computing and Mathematical sciences, and NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

“With support from Rockley, we believe we have an opportunity to leverage integrated sensor technologies and machine learning algorithms to create intelligent sensor systems that process and make sense of the data, help avoid information overload for patients and doctors, and do a better job of avoiding false positives,” said Azita Emami, Andrew and Peggy Cherng Professor of Electrical Engineering and Medical Engineering at Caltech and director of the S2I initiative.

Leveraging Rockley’s and Caltech’s experience developing AI solutions for biosensing and healthcare, the collaboration will also explore new applications for cloud-based services, exploiting the advanced capabilities of platforms such as Amazon Web Services.