Health Mobile Application

02/28/2014

Status: Provisional Patent Application Filed, Testing in Process

Professor Guanling Chen from the Computer Science department at UMass Lowell invented an energy-efficient continuous location tracking system that works with Android smartphones. This technology will be utilized to develop two mobile applications that target location-based behavior health markets. One of these mobile applications will be for monitoring the behavior of mental health patients and the other will be for weight management. This technology differs from other current technologies because:

• It is more accurate than current GPS trackers
• It requires low energy compared to other GPS trackers that are extremely power hungry
• Rather than using WiFi scan as the primary place entrance and departure detection, this technology uses accelerometer to determine when to turn on WiFi or GPS for recognition of a current place
• The benefits of using accelerometer are tremendous, as it is the most power-efficient sensor, often several magnitudes less than WiFi scan or GPS on modern smartphones
• It focuses on preventive care rather than acute care 

New Venture Initiative (NVI) identified this technology as one with great market and commercialization potential in the growing mHealth (mobile health) market, which is projected to reach $23 billion in revenues by 2018. NVI will assist Professor Chen in:

• Market research
• Funding for further application development 
• Conducting small scale user studies 

If you are interested in the Health Mobile Application, please contact Nancy Saucier, Director of New Venture Development at Nancy_Saucier@uml.edu or 978-934-3212.