SBIR-STTR Award

The for profit small business concern, Tricorder Array Technologies LLC., will develop, in partnership with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, SIDECARe™, (Sensing and Integrating Data for Environmental Conditions in Animal Research). This device will automate collection of relevant data that will enhance consistency in animal models used to study human health treatment research. Our innovative device application is set to improve research animal care at the cage level on a massive cost- effective scale. SIDECARe™ will be a wireless device that will collect data from a specific cage and communicate it to a database. Sensors in the device will isolate the cage environment and report collected data. Data collected will include Date / Time, Room #, Temperature, Humidity, Light, Motion Detection and Sound from observations in the cage. The device will have embedded algorithms for real-time interpretation of sensor data. The data collected will upload from each device to a cloud-based database; where additional algorithms will operate on this data and create timely reports and real-time alerts to the animal research facility's animal care staff and/or research PI as appropriate. Aim 1. Select and Validate Critical Components for SIDECARe™. Milestone 1) Final selection of optimal SIDECARe™ components for cage monitoring and wireless communication; Milestone 2 enclosure integrated with components into a package compatible with exposure to animals, universal applicability to varied cage styles, and integration into cage processing workflows. Aim 2. Integrate and Validate Proof of Concept of SIDECARe™. Milestone 3) Implementation of SIDECARe™ firmware for low-power data collection, reduction, and transmission for determination of specific indicators; Milestone 4) SIDECARe™ wireless communication system integrated with facility's WiFi network and animal management database; Milestone 5) Perform short-term, in-field demonstration of SIDECARe™. Milestone 5. Perform short-term, in-field demonstration of SIDECARe™.

Public Health Relevance Statement:
PROJECT NARRATIVE Tricorder Array Technologies, seeks NIH support to develop the novel tool SIDECARe™ (Sensing and Integrating Data for Environmental Conditions in Animal Research), which will improve animal care at research institutions. This device will automate collection of relevant data that will enhance consistency in animal models used to study human health treatment research. Our innovative device application is set to improve research animal care at the cage level on a massive cost-effective scale.

Project Terms:
Alabama; Algorithms; Animal Experimentation; Animal Research; Animal Experimental Use; Animal Welfare; Animals; Automation; Behavior; Censuses; Data Collection; Death; Cessation of life; Dermatitis; Environment; Facility Designs; Health; Modern Man; Human; Humidity; Photoradiation; Light; Manuals; Motion; Murine; Mice Mammals; Mice; Mus; National Institutes of Health; NIH; United States National Institutes of Health; National Research Council; wellbeing; well-being; Personal Satisfaction; Recommendation; Research; Rodents Mammals; Rodentia; Rodent; Software; Computer software; sound; Technology; Temperature; Time; Ulceration; Ulcer; Universities; Hydrogen Oxide; Water; pricing; Price; Businesses; case report; Case Study; Device Designs; Custom; animal care; base; sensor; improved; Clinical; Phase; Evaluation; Failure; Individual; Databases; data base; Data Bases; Progress Reports; Exposure to; tool; programs; Notification; fighting; Home environment; Home; Protocols documentation; Protocol; System; Early Diagnosis; early detection; Animal Model; model organism; model of animal; Animal Models and Related Studies; novel; member; payment; Data Base Management; database management; Devices; Reporting; animal facility; Intervention; interventional strategy; Intervention Strategies; Institution; preventing; prevent; Feeds; Advocate; Data; Detection; Reproducibility; Collection; Laboratory Animal Production and Facilities; Research Animal Facility; Wireless Technology; wireless; Monitor; transmission process; Transmission; Principal Investigator; Process; Development; developmental; cost; feeding; design; designing; cost effective; innovation; innovative; innovate; platform-independent; relational database; cloud based; experimental study; experimental research; experiment; wireless communication

Tricorder Array Technologies, LLC (Tricorder), will develop, in partnership with the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), SIDECARe™ (Tricorder Array Technologies Animal Welfare Sensor). SIDECARe™ is set to improve research animal care at the cage level on a massive cost-effective scale by automating the collection of relevant data to enhance consistency and reproducibility of animal models. SIDECARe™ will revolutionize monitoring the health and well- being of mice by being the first to categorize mouse ultrasonic vocalizations (mUSV). In this Phase-II application, aim 1 completes the integration of the continuous mUSV monitoring solution into SIDECARe™ devices. Aim 2 expands SIDECARe™ Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled classification capabilities to cover the top causes of research disruption. Aim 3 optimizes the SIDECARe™ system via beta deployments in the UAB vivarium workflow. Finally, aim 4 deploys beta systems at external test sites for pre-sales trials. Tricorder's innovative use of ultrasonic sensors allows the sensor array to pick up mouse vocalizations and use them to interpret health and social events in the cage. SIDECARe™ utilizes a distributed approach to deployment of the AI algorithms required for effective segmentation and interpretation of mUSVs. The focus of the current AI algorithms for SIDECARe™ is to detect conditions such as mouse pups in a cage, flooded cages, fighting animals, and ulcerative dermatitis. The continuous acquisition of mUSV data across increasing numbers of cages, however, represents a wealth of unexplored data available for future development of novel algorithms and new understandings of mouse behavior and well-being. Of particular importance to the SIDECARe™ system is to integrate continuous machine-learning algorithms, which constantly evolve to better identify additional factors and trends that contribute to increased rates of morbidity and mortality. The recorded presence of specific environmental conditions (cage lighting levels, temperature variations, humidity, ambient noise levels) correlated with mouse behaviors are useful for studying research outcomes and/or reproducibility.

Public Health Relevance Statement:
PROJECT NARRATIVE Tricorder Array Technologies, LLC (Tricorder) seeks to improve the care of research animals using the SIDECARe™ system to collect and interpret data gathered from in-cage monitoring of every cage in a research facility. In addition to monitoring in-cage temperature, light and humidity, SIDECARe™ innovatively monitors animal welfare using mouse ultrasonic vocalizations (mUSV). Therefore, SIDECARe™ addresses the critical concerns for animal research as set forth by the Institute for Laboratory Animal Research: census and validation, and microenvironmental and health monitoring, translating into an unprecedented impact for animal research outcomes and reproducibility.

Project Terms:
Adult; 21+ years old; Adult Human; adulthood; Alabama; Algorithms; Animal Experimentation; Animal Experimental Use; Animal Research; Animal Welfare; Animals; Artificial Intelligence; AI system; Computer Reasoning; Machine Intelligence; Automobile Driving; driving; Behavior; Biomedical Research; Censuses; Classification; Systematics; Data Collection; Cessation of life; Death; Dermatitis; Environment; Female; Floods; Flooding; Future; Health; Health Status; Level of Health; Housing; Humidity; Industry; Interview; Light; Photoradiation; Lighting; Illumination; male; Moods; Morbidity - disease rate; Morbidity; mortality; Mus; Mice; Mice Mammals; Murine; Noise; North Carolina; Painful; Pain; well-being; wellbeing; Personal Satisfaction; Research; Sales; Stress; Technology; Temperature; Testing; Time; Translating; Ulcer; Ulceration; Universities; Water; Hydrogen Oxide; Case Study; case report; Outcomes Research; Caring; animal care; base; sensor; improved; Site; Phase; Variant; Variation; Medical; Evaluation; Training; Failure; Individual; Data Bases; data base; Databases; machine learned; Machine Learning; Life; programs; fighting; Event; System; vocalization; Performance; research facility; Animal Models and Related Studies; model of animal; model organism; Animal Model; neural; relating to nervous system; phrases; novel; research study; Devices; Reporting; social; Modeling; Sampling; animal facility; Intervention Strategies; interventional strategy; Intervention; preventing; prevent; Address; Ultrasonic; Ultrasonics; Data; Detection; Reproducibility; Collection; Small Business Technology Transfer Research; STTR; Validation; Monitor; trend; Principal Investigator; Characteristics; Development; developmental; cost; digital; design; designing; wound; tissue wound; wounding; wounds; cost effective; prospective; Coupled; Coupling; innovation; innovate; innovative; data acquisition; pup; multimodality; multi-modality; Institute for Laboratory Animal Research; Cloud Computing; Cloud Infrastructure; cloud computer; Innovation Corps; I-Corps; Internet of Things; experimental study; experiment; experimental research; real time monitoring; realtime monitoring; microphone; machine learning algorithm; machine learned algorithm; machine learning based algorithm; Home; wireless; machine learning model; machine learning based model; artificial intelligence algorithm; AI algorithm