Bishop Lands Grant from Sony to Develop Novel Magnetometer
By Liz Sheeley
Professor David Bishop (ECE, Physics, MSE, ME, BME) has been awarded a $100,000 research grant from Sony Electronics to further develop a novel, ultra-sensitive and contactless magnetometer to be used for anything from location sensing to heart monitoring.
“Our technique is about 100 to 1000 times more sensitive than what others have done before,” says Bishop. “Once developed, this could be used for biosensing and perhaps become a mobile monitoring tool for patients because of its portable size.”
This award will allow Bishop and a doctoral student in his lab, Josh Javor, to build iterations of the device and deliver prototypes to Sony. The two teams can work together to continuously develop the device to work towards a commercially viable product that is user-friendly and can be easily manufactured.
The current technology for magneto cardiology and encephalopathy techniques relies on large, clunky equipment that is only accessible in a clinical setting, and uses cryogenic systems in order to have a significant level of sensitivity.
Bishop’s process is different because it uses microelectromechanical systems or MEMS, an inexpensive, chip-scale technique that could significantly advance the field.
“Sony has been a leader in not just consumer electronics, but also medical devices,” says Bishop. “It was an honor to be selected to receive this award and I’m excited to work with their team to hopefully create a robust and reliable technology.”