In a Nutshell

Research on the design and development of a Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard (Smart Shirt) for Combat Casualty Care has led to the realization of the world’s first Wearable Motherboard or an “intelligent” garment for the 21st Century. The Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard uses optical fibers to detect bullet wounds, and special sensors and interconnects to monitor the body vital signs during combat conditions. This Georgia Tech Wearable Motherboard (Smart Shirt) provides an extremely versatile framework for the incorporation of sensing, monitoring and information processing devices. The principal advantage of Smart Shirt is that it provides, for the first time, a very systematic way of monitoring the vital signs of humans in an unobtrusive manner. Appropriate sensors have been “plugged” into this motherboard using the developed Interconnection Technology and attached to any part of the individual being monitored, thereby creating a flexible wearable monitoring device. The flexible data bus integrated into the structure transmits the information to monitoring devices such as an EKG Machine, a temperature recorder, a voice recorder, etc. The bus also serves to transmit information to the sensors (and hence, the wearer) from external sources, thus making Smart Shirt a valuable information infrastructure. Smart Shirt is lightweight and can be worn easily by anyone — from infants to senior citizens. Smart Shirt has enormous potential for applications in fields such as telemedicine, monitoring of patients in post-operative recovery, the prevention of SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome), and monitoring of astronauts, athletes, law enforcement personnel and combat soldiers.