Undergraduate project wins international conference award

Daryl Ma who graduated from our department only last month with an MEng in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, has won a Best Student Paper Award.

The Award was received at the IEEE international conference on Biomedical Circuit and Systems (BioCAS).

His paper 'Wireless System for continuous in-Mouth pH Monitoring', originated from his final year undergraduate project, which was supervised by Dr Sara Ghoreishizadeh, Junior Research Fellow in the Centre for Bio-Inspired Technology, Circuits and Systems Group.

Daryl presented his paper on the outcome of his project at the BioCAS Conference in October. The recognition is particularly special because?the award is usually given to a PhD student, and this year more than 200 papers were presented at the conference.

 Sara explains: “Daryl developed a smart orthodontic bracket for continuous in-mouth pH monitoring. This was a heterogeneous system comprising of energy harvesting units, readout circuits, and pH sensor. The novelty of the project, with no similar work published, required Daryl to study and apply a range of different subjects: embedded system design, energy harvesting techniques, near-field wireless communications and pH sensor development. He moved his research forward and was creative in offering solutions.” 

The pH in saliva can be used to measure bacterial growth and tooth decay.  At present, commercially available salivary pH sensors are only capable of a one-off pH measurement. The device that Daryl has developed is a first prototype of a wireless device which can be placed in the mouth for 24 hours or more, and can measure/monitor the pH of saliva continuously.

Daryl says: “Sara was extremely instrumental in mentoring me for the conference presentation as well as writing the paper. Going to the conference was an awesome experience - I got to meet researchers from all around the world, and the award was an unexpected surprise. I would like to give further credit to my fellow graduates who were willing subjects in the lab helping me find solutions to the project, also the lab technicians who I spent quite a lot of time with; and the CBIT group as a whole for taking me around Turin. I don’t think I would have completed the project in time without the help of so many people and would like to thank all of them.”

Congratulations to Daryl.

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