Y.K. Yoon, Associate Professor at ECE Florida, has developed an IoT device which is capable of harvesting data directly from the human mouth, enabling real-time health data, delivered via bluetooth to a smart phone. Using tiny sensors fitted into the mouthguard, the smart mouthguard developed by Yoon and his associates is able to measure three components of athlete health: head impacts, heat stress and heart stress.

The unique functionality is made possible by 11 tiny sensors embedded on a single chip. One of the sensors is an accelerometer, which is able to detect extreme impacts, allowing coaching staff to be alerted to potential concussions. The sensors are in constant contact with the athlete’s saliva, enabling the detection of chemical changes indicating dehydration and heart stress. While originally developed to detect dehydration and concussion in football players, the smart mouthguard has implications for many other areas of research, including linguistics and gait analysis.

Dr. Yoon was recently featured on WCJB TV—the segment aired July 1 during the evening news.

Dr. Yoon’s work was also featured in the Summer edition of Explore Magazine, published by the UF Office of Research.