Press Release
Wise Wireless Sensor by Yihong Qi and Alex Qi Receives the Silver A' Design Award in Product Engineering and Technical Design
The international grand jury of the 2020 - 2021 A' Design Award & Competition recognizes Yihong Qi and Alex Qi for product engineering and technical design
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 23, 2021 /DesignNewswire/ Wise Wireless Sensor by Yihong Qi and Alex Qi, designed for Mercku Inc., has been granted the Silver A' Design Award in the Product Engineering and Technical Design category, A' Design Award & Competition has announced. The recognition forms part of the 2020 - 2021 A' Design Award & Competition and was decided through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who assessed anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
What the Silver A' Design Award Means
The Silver A' Design Award celebrates top-tier designs that embody excellence and innovation. This award acknowledges creations that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also highly functional, reflecting the designer's deep understanding and skill. Silver A' Design Award recipients are recognized for their contribution to raising industry standards and advancing the practice of design. Their work often incorporates original innovations and elicits a strong emotional response, making a notable impact on the improvement of everyday life.
Regarding Wise Wireless Sensor
Wise is a wireless sensor that measures heartbeat, breath rate, and other vital signs without wearables. The standalone sensor measures 4 cm by 4 cm with a width of 2 mm, and seven antennas are fitted within a coin-sized space. Internal system interference is reduced, and software separates the sensor signal from environmental noise. Small rhythms such as heartbeats are measured from up to 3 meters away. The sensor is embedded during manufacturing in vehicles, home products, and electronic devices, and it works without user action.
About Yihong Qi and Alex Qi
Founded in Canada's Waterloo technology hub in 2017, Mercku’s mission is to make the most advanced and complete networking suite to connect people and information. Mercku is a full-stack tech company with in-house design, engineering, testing, deployment and support for our Customer Premise Equipment (CPE). Mercku is built on the foundation of our founders' decades of expertise (and over 450 patents) in network technology, allowing us to be innovation leaders across the industry. We're obsessed with pushing the boundaries of wireless technology to realize our vision to leverage the most advanced technology, building powerful smart home products, to enhance daily life globally.
Award Record
With this recognition, Yihong Qi and Alex Qi is a winner of 2 A' Design Awards. The awards were granted in the 2020 - 2021 edition of the A' Design Award & Competition.
About the A' Product Engineering and Technical Design Award
The A' Engineering Design Award is an international competition recognizing outstanding engineering projects by top engineers and consulting firms worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to product engineers, technical designers, industrial designers and industrial design studios from all countries. Typical entries include blueprints, prototypes, schematics, CAD models, technical drawings and machine designs. The awarded engineering designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/engineering
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/123250
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/123250
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!123250
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/302434
- Further Information from the Laureate: http://www.mercku.com
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
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Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Wise Wireless Sensor
- Function
- Wireless Sensor
- Category
- Product Engineering and Technical Design
- Discipline
- Industrial Design
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Colors
- Dim Gray, Dark Slate Gray, Black, Gainsboro and Light Gray
- Images
- 4
- Client
- Mercku Inc.
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Yihong Qi and Alex Qi
- Country
- Canada
- Recognition
- Silver A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2020 - 2021
- Design ID
- #123250
Credits
- Team
- Yihong Qi, Alex Qi, Yunlong Luo and Ge Shi
- Image Credits
- Mercku Inc.
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- Wireless Intelligence Sensing (WISe) combines unique hardware and computing breakthroughs to accurately measure heartbeat, breath rates, and vital signs without wearables. Innovations include minimizing wireless interference, fitting seven antennas in a coin-sized space. Cutting edge computation isolates sensor signals from environmental noise and measures minuscule rhythms like heartbeats, non-intrusively, from meters away.
- Inspiration
- Advances in science and technology empower humanity, health, and longevity; however, today's tools cannot decipher human vitality and behavior. Mercku leverages advanced artificial intelligence and hardware to connect things and environments to people, unlocking a truly connected IoT ecosystem. Innovations into eliminating internal interference, environmental noise, and robust system designs enable devices to measure nearby vitals without wearables, completing a proper machine-human integration.
- Research
- The research focused on three main areas. Hardware research and advancements protected by intellectual capital delves into internal system noise reduction and maximized antenna gain, resulting in industry-leading hardware performance. Software algorithms remove environmental noise to obtain precise measurements of the intended subject(s). Lastly, proprietary artificial intelligence enables learnings to decipher information into discernable health and presence insights.
- Challenge
- The biggest challenge is overcoming the system interference to obtain valuable vital data without wearables. Using RADAR, measuring airplanes in the sky is complex, but measuring something as small as a heartbeat, even under clothing, is exponentially more complicated. Internal system noise improves upon Nobel Prize-winning theories to minimize all system noise, to achieve wireless vital measurement. Currently, this solution boasts industry-leading accuracy due to breakthroughs in physics.
- Realization and Technology
- The three-step design captures data, synthesizes information, and accumulates knowledge. Hardware innovations, including industry-leading antenna systems, accurately capture human data. Then, proprietary software algorithms turn data into information and distinguish human behavior. Lastly, advanced AI and machine learning computation build models to understand human behavior, enabling early disease detection and empowering a human-machine ecosystem.
- Operation and Interaction
- Embedded into existing or new products, WISe unlocks vital sensing capabilities automatically, without user intervention. In a car, WISe can scan for security intrusions, measure driver health and detect children. In the home, WISe can make any product vital-sensitive. The sensor is embedded as a component at the manufacturing level.
- Project Duration and Location
- WISe development started in 2017 in Waterloo, Canada, and the first commercial product became available in September 2020. Currently, WISe integration occurs in the automotive and smart home industries.
- Specifications
- The sensor can fit in existing products, automobiles, and electronic devices. The size is flexible, and the antenna array can be adapted to fit unique implementations and environments. The standalone sensor measures 4cm x 4cm and has a 2mm width. Leveraging mmWave frequency, particularly 60GHz, this sensor can achieve near-perfect results up to 3m. Beyond that, the sensor can cover multiple rooms for presence detection capabilities.
- Keywords
- Wireless, Sensing, Mercku, WISe, Connectivity, Automotive, Healthcare, Sensor
