Chaski: respiratory tracker for athletes & sports enthusiasts

Summary

Chaski is a wearable respiratory tracker designed for use by athletes & sports enthusiasts to measure and optimize their physical strength and endurance as part of their routine workout thus avoiding costly tests at sports medicine clinics.

This technology utilizes machine-learning algorithms to process respiratory activity and detect ventilatory thresholds to let users know when they are about to reach their endurance threshold so that they can slow down their pace.

Chaski is a pioneer in providing ventilatory physiological analytics to users who currently have limited access to advance performance studies.  

This technology was inspired by the DALI project, a state-of-the-art medical device that could guarantee the safety of people recovering from major surgery by monitoring patient airflow so that medical personnel would efficiently respond if a patient were to experience difficulty breathing or stop breathing. 

Potential Applications

• Endurance training for marathons, cycling and other sports.
• Monitoring respiratory performance and comparing it to other variables.
• Planning customized sport routines, based on physiological parameters.

Development Status

A functional prototype is currently in operation and the first round of technical validation tests against the standard gold are slated to begin soon in the laboratory. Additionally, designers have already begun working on casings and fasteners appropriate for use during sports and by athletes in validation pilots under real conditions.

Advantages

• The only wearable device that is capable of real-time monitoring of respiratory activity and level of exertion.
• It can be used while training, thanks to its small, lightweight size.
• Access to advanced respiratory physiological parameters for the cost of a smartwatch. 

Opportunities

In the United States and Europe, for example, the market for products for endurance athletes totals 31.5 million. At a starting price of 399 USD, the total available market comes to 12.5 billion dollars.

Intellectual Property 

The following patents are currently pending: International patent PCT/IB019/050229, US patent application No. 16/960,269) and Chinese patent No. 201980018451.9), as “Techniques for quantifying respiration using a wearable device and related systems and methods.”

Research Team

Daniel Hurtado, Associate Professor, Instituto de Ingeniería Biológica y Médica, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile