Amy Droitcour

Chief Technology Officer at Kai Sensors

Innovative technical leader with PhD in electrical engineering and experience in medical devices, physiological monitoring, and combination products.

Systems Engineering — R&D — Clinical Engineering — Project Management

Physiological Monitoring — Patient Safety — Transdermal Iontophoretic Drug Delivery

RF and Analog Circuits and Systems — Sensors — Signal Processing — Radar Systems

510(k) Submission —  IEC & ISO Standards — FDA Quality Regulations — Design Controls

Patent Applications in Process — Numerous Technical Presentations and Publications

Posted in Resume | No Comments »

Professional Experience

Chief Technology Officer, Kai Sensors, Honolulu, HI, 2008-present

Developing a radar-based non-contact monitoring device that measures respiration rate and patterns for vital signs spot checks and long-term monitoring, with applications in the home, kiosk, and hospital.

• Identified workflows and prepared timelines and budgets for new products, during R&D, product development, regulatory, clinical, and manufacturing phases.
• Implemented Quality System complying with 21CFR part 820 and ISO 13485: developed quality system procedures, selected and customized electronic document control system compliant with 21CFR part 11, and managed Design Control documentation for company’s first product.
• Prepared 510(k) submission for company’s first product. Submission was approved in 4 months.
• Performed market research and led risk assessment; used this information to prepare User Needs and System Requirements for company’s first product.
• Led business development and demonstration meetings with potential customers and presented product information in fundraising meetings.
• Devised product enhancements and prepared provisional patent filings for these inventions.

Staff Engineer, Drug Device R&D, ALZA Corporation, A Johnson and Johnson Company, Mountain View, CA, 2006-2007

Developed electrical current controllers for clinical and preclinical studies of iontophoretic drug delivery and studied feasibility of integration of sensors with drug-delivery systems.

• Discovered trend in clinical study data and used it to develop a patentable algorithm for next-generation IONSYS product (patent application in process).
• Proposed patient-safety enhancements for IONSYS product to R&D, medical, and marketing teams by highlighting best candidates following review of technology and assessment of compatibility with IONSYS value proposition.
• Wrote technical specifications and request for quotation, and led selection of contractor for design and development of new Phase I clinical study device.
• Selected and managed 3rd party vendors to build and repair pre-clinical testing devices and to generate required design control documentation.

Research Assistant (PhD Thesis), Stanford Transducers Lab, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 2001-2006

Developed a system based on a single-chip radar for non-contact, through-clothing measurement of heart and respiration rates, including iterative architecture and system design and human subject studies.

• Improved radar system SNR by identifying limiting factors and improvements; proved the analysis was correct through laboratory experiments and human subjects studies.
• Led effort to obtain approval for Human Subjects Protocol from NASA and Stanford institutional review boards and performed method comparison study on 22 human subjects.
• Developed MATLAB software to separate superimposed heart and respiration motion signatures and determine rates from motion signatures as well as from gold standards.
• Designed and executed the first published experimental verification of range correlation theory.
• Determined the location and amount of skin surface motion due to heartbeat, pulse, and respiration by reviewing and evaluating medical and engineering literature.

Senior Technical Associate, Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, Murray Hill, NJ, Summers 2000 & 2001

• Solved phase-demodulation null point problem by implementing quadrature receiver and appropriate signal processing in 2.4-GHz CMOS direct-conversion radar.
• Laid out integrated circuit, designed printed circuit board, and performed testing for the first fully integrated silicon CMOS single-chip Doppler radar transceiver.

RF Hardware Engineering Intern , Dynamic Telecommunications, Inc., Germantown, MD, Summer 1999

• Enabled high-performance radio product launch by redesigning the frequency synthesizer to reduce phase noise.

Systems Engineering Intern, Raytheon Electronics Systems, Portsmouth, RI , Summer 1998

• Developed a relational database for submarine sonar system with a team of engineers.

Posted in Resume | No Comments »

Education

Stanford University, Stanford, CA

Ph.D., Electrical Engineering, June 2006

M.S., Electrical Engineering, June 2003

Ph.D. Dissertation: Non-contact measurement of heart and respiration rates with a single-chip microwave Doppler radar

Cornell University, Ithaca, NY

B.S., Electrical Engineering, cum laude, with honors, May 2000

Posted in Resume | No Comments »

Professional Training

Project Countdown… Managing Workloads and Projects, July 25, 2007

Improving Patient Safety through Medical Device Interoperability, June 25-27, 2007

ISO 14971 and Safety Risk Management, March 16, 2007

Design Control and Software Validation Practices, March 14, 2007

ALZA Design Control Training, February 21-23, 2007

Posted in Resume | No Comments »

Technical Skills

RF and Analog Circuits Laboratory: Oscilloscope, Spectrum Analyzer, Network Analyzer, Vector Signal Analyzer, Phase Noise Measurement System, Probe Station

Analog and RF Circuit Design: Agilent ADS, Hspice, Microwave Office, AutoCAD

Signal Processing: MATLAB (adaptive, wavelet)

Posted in Resume | No Comments »

Thesis Abstract

Non-contact measurement of heart and respiration rates with a single-chip microwave Doppler radar

Microwave Doppler radar can be used for non-contact, through-clothing measurement of chest wall motion, from which heart and respiration signatures and rates can be derived in real-time. A heart and respiration rate monitor has been developed based on this principle and the radio electronics have been integrated on a single CMOS chip, making inexpensive mass-production and miniaturization of the system possible. Although there are many potential applications for non-contact monitoring of heart and respiration rates, the fully integrated version focuses on the large and growing home monitoring market.
This dissertation thoroughly explores the design requirements and trade-offs for this system, analyzing the transceiver architecture, circuit specifications, and the effects of phase noise on the system. Non-quadrature 1.6-GHz direct-conversion continuous-wave transceivers have been developed in 0.25-mm CMOS and BiCMOS, and two different 2.4-GHz quadrature direct-conversion continuous-wave radar transceivers with 1-mW transmit power have been fabricated in 0.25-mm CMOS. In a direct-conversion receiver, the phase relationship between the received signal and the local oscillator has a significant effect on the demodulation sensitivity, and the null points can be avoided with a quadrature receiver. The range-correlation effect on residual phase noise is a critical factor when detecting small phase fluctuations with a high-phase-noise on-chip oscillator. Phase noise reduction due to range correlation has been experimentally evaluated, and the measured phase noise was within 5 dB of predicted values on average.

Data is presented from the method comparison study in which heart and respiration rates measured with the 0.25-mm CMOS quadrature Doppler radar system were compared with those measured with standard techniques on 22 human subjects. Accurate measurement of heart rate at 1 m and accurate respiration measurement at 1.5 m are shown. The data from the method comparison study is used to confirm theoretical estimates of the SNR, to evaluate techniques for combining the quadrature output signals and to evaluate techniques for determining the heart rate from the heart signature. Principal components combining is used to combine the quadrature signals and autocorrelation of the heart and respiration signatures is used to determine the heart and respiration rates.

The current version of the single-chip Doppler radar cardio-respiratory rate detection system can successfully measure heart rate up to one meter and respiration rates up to two meters in most subjects that have been instructed to sit still, and it could be used to monitor sleeping or unconscious persons from a relatively close range, avoiding the need to apply electrodes or other sensors in the correct position and to wire the subject to the monitor. Doppler radar cardiopulmonary monitoring offers a promising possibility of non-contact, through-clothing measurement of heart and respiration rates. A CMOS single-chip version of this technology offers a potentially inexpensive implementation that could extend applications to consumer home-monitoring products, and could enable the use of multiple transceivers to solve some system-level problems. Further advances in the circuit design, system design and signal processing can increase the range and quality of the rate-finding, broadening the potential application areas of this technology.

Posted in Thesis | No Comments »

Journal Publications

A. D. Droitcour, O. Boric-Lubecke, V. Lubecke, J. Lin, G. T. A. Kovacs, “Physiological motion sensing with modified silicon base station chips,” IEICE Trans. Electronics, vol. E-87C, no. 9, pp. 1524-1531, Sept. 2004.

A. D. Droitcour, O. Boric-Lubecke, V. Lubecke, J. Lin, G. T. A. Kovacs, “Range correlation and I/Q performance benefits in single chip silicon Doppler radars for non-contact cardiopulmonary monitoring,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory and Tech., vol. 52, no.3, pp. 838-848, Mar. 2004.

Posted in Resume | No Comments »

Presented Conference Publications

A. D. Droitcour, O. Boric-Lubecke, V. Lubecke, J. Lin, G. T. A. Kovacs, “Modified silicon base station chips as biomedical sensors,” Proc. IEEE TCWCT, Oct. 2003, pp. 210-211.

A. D. Droitcour, O. Boric-Lubecke, V. Lubecke, J. Lin, G. T. A. Kovacs, “Range correlation effect on ISM band I/Q CMOS radar for non-contact sensing of vital signs,” IEEE MTT-IMS Digest, June 2003, vol. 3, pp.1945-1948.

A. D. Droitcour, O. Boric-Lubecke, V. Lubecke, J. Lin, “0.25 mm CMOS and BiCMOS single-chip direct-conversion Doppler radars for remote sensing of vital signs,” IEEE ISSCC Digest, Feb. 2002, vol. 1, pp.348-348.

A. D. Droitcour, O. Boric-Lubecke, V. Lubecke, J. Lin, “A microwave radio for Doppler radar sensing of vital signs,” 2001 IEEE MTT-S IMS Digest, May 2001, vol. 1, pp.175-178.

Posted in Resume | No Comments »

Workshop Presentation

A. D. Droitcour, O. Boric-Lubecke, V. Lubecke, J. Lin, G. T. A. Kovacs, “Wireless sensing of cardiopulmonary motion using silicon Doppler radars,” Wireless sensors: Devices, systems, and applications, IEEE Radio and Wireless Conference, Atlanta, Sept. 2004.

Posted in Resume | No Comments »

Coauthor Conference Publications

D. Samardzija, O. Boric-Lubecke, A. Host-Madsen, V. M. Lubecke, T. Sizer, A. D. Droitcour, G. T. A. Kovacs, “Applications of MIMO Techniques to Sensing of Cardiopulmonary Activity,” Proceedings of Wireless Communications and Applied Computations Electromagnetics 2005, pp. 618-621.

O. Boric-Lubecke, A. D. Droitcour, V. M. Lubecke, J. Lin, G. T. A. Kovacs, “Wireless IC Doppler radars for sensing of heart and respiration activity,” Proc. 2003 IEEE TELSIKS, Nis, Serbia, Oct. 2003, vol. 1, pp. 337-344

Posted in Resume | No Comments »