Mart Min

The general goal is the development of electronic devices for clinical measurement of soft tissues. Specific result is a device for continuous monitoring of the condition of the heart muscle during heart surgery. Heart disease is the most common cause of death (WHO 2019, https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death). Surgery plays an important role in the treatment of advanced heart diseases, with a risk of damage to the muscle (of a stopped heart!) during surgery. Current heart protection methods are poorly controlled, as based on schemes developed by trial and error. The unique solution being created will ensure the real-time usage of protective solutions based on objective heart muscle indicators. The technology being created, also allows measuring of various other muscle, fat and connective tissues, and could also distinguish benign and malignant tissues. The solutions created use inventive electrical impedance spectroscopy technologies of TalTech.

The goal is to study new solutions & principles for electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) with significantly improved metrological and functional characteristics, like higher measurement accuracy, resolution and speed, lower power consumption and wider frequency and dynamic ranges. New solutions enhance the existing and enable new applications of EIS in healthcare, biology and industries. The principles & solutions to measure biological & physiological properties of organs, tissues and microorganisms/pathogens, as well as of composites, alloys etc. are the subjects of the research. Unique low-cost low-power miniaturized high-resolution and flexible measurement components with various connectivity (IoT, BAN etc) will be created by new EIS groundings. An important R&D aspect is synchronous signal processing and communication in EIS sensor-arrays. Research aspects: sampling theory AI/ML) and metrology (eg novel calibration techniques, methods of implementation in biology and medicine.

"EXCITE brings together the topranked ICT research groups Estonia to work jointly on a focussed, yet broad and extendable, research programme. It will capitalize on the existing expertise to create synergies on the rich but fragmented landscape of the Estonian ICT research. The consortium will advance foundational theories of model verification and data analysis. On this groundwork, it will develop methods and tools for sound practices of designing and analyzing reliable and secure ICT systems processing large data volumes, as demanded by applications to domains of high socioeconomic relevance (cyberphysical and robotic systems, ehealth and biomedical systems). We will start with 10 cooperation themes with clearly defined objectives, methodology and expected results. These themes will be refined and redefined after 3 years. EXCITE will support research sustainability and provide a development opportunity for young researchers by financing 20-30 PhD students and postdocs.