Biosensing Battery-Free Smart Glasses

Transform everyday eyewear into a continuous health monitoring platform

Vision

By embedding ultra-low-power Triboelectric Nanogenerators (TENG) into standard glass frames, GlassTENG bridges the gap between passive daily wear and rich physiological telemetry—enabling real-time tracking of cardiovascular metrics, facial activities, and behavioral habits without intrusive or battery-draining sensors.

Progress

Sensor Design and Fabrication

Custom multi-layer (PDMS/Ag and FEP/Ag) TENG sensors, sensitive to tiny forces (0.01 N–2N) generated by facial physiological activity e.g., pulse, jaw (50mV–0.8V), optimized for skin-conforming contact at three anatomically distinct sites (angular artery, superficial temporal artery, and temporalis muscle) on glasses.

Ultra-Low-Power Analog Front-End

A custom high-impedance analog front-end matched to each GlassTENG sensor’s unique mechanically induced voltage output, achieving a power budget of 1.36𝜇W per channel (4.1 𝜇W total).

Multi-Modal Physiological Sensing

Consistent arterial pulse from all three sites, achieving MAE of 1.82 BPM for heart rate against ground truth and 93.8% accuracy across 6 facial activity classes, validated through a 20-participant user study.

Publications

GlassTENG: Self-Powered Triboelectric Nanogenerator based Sensing of Pulse, Jaw, and Upper Facial Activity from Everyday Glasses

arXiv

Team

Collaborator

Prof. Nabil Alshurafa

Masters

Raj N. Dave
Jovanis Prodanich
Yung-ching Lai
Yangtian Jiang

Undergraduate

Oscar Jakacki
Stanley Lin
Katie Jiang
Enrique Hernandez