Syncknee
A soft wearable system for knee motion and swelling monitoring.
Syncknee is a lightweight, breathable on-body artificial skin for at-home knee health tracking. The system combines soft materials, wireless sensing, machine learning, and product design to make knee monitoring easier outside the clinic.
Osteoarthritis care needs more than a simple step count or bend angle. Swelling is an important signal, but it is difficult to follow through everyday wearables. Syncknee was designed to sense both motion and swelling while staying soft enough for daily use.
I worked across the sensor structure, product experience, Android app, and system integration. The base textile was fabricated through SBS electrospinning and paired with a GaIn conductive layer. I helped customize the sensor pattern around the knee's form and movement, then designed a screen-printing method to apply it to the textile substrate.
The wearable runs wirelessly from a rechargeable battery and uses a Seeed Studio XIAO as the onboard microcontroller. I built the Android app to receive sensor data through Bluetooth and worked with an ML engineer to bring behavior recognition into the mobile experience.
The project received a Good Design Award from The Chicago Athenaeum and was published in Cell Reports Physical Science. Project IP is held by PolyU Future Mobility Lab.