This text is part of the special Research section
Would it be possible to finely measure the physiological state of a person or to practice alternative medicine thanks to… earplugs? This could soon become a reality thanks to the collaboration between a researcher from the École de technologie supérieure (ETS) and a Montreal company specializing in in-ear technologies.
“Just by putting a few electrodes in the duct and around the pavilion [de l’oreille], we are able to have quite interesting information and to hear what is happening in the human body, explains Jérémie Voix, researcher in in-ear technologies at ETS. Over the next few years, it is possible that we will be able, from traffic jams, to recover a lot of signals [physiologiques], such as breathing, heartbeat, or digestion. By using the in-the-ear canal as a preferred gateway to the body, technologies like this could then be used in fields like medicine.
Jérémie Voix dreams of going even further, and designing a device that could be used in alternative medicine treatments. “There’s the vagus nerve that runs from the cortex to the intestines and is of great importance for issues of stress, digestion, malaise or motion sickness,” Voix explains. There are doctors who have used electrical stimulation of this nerve for years for people with schizophrenia or depression. My idea is that we could try to stimulate the vagus nerve thanks to the plug, whether it is with sounds, vibrations or modalities of light. “
Prevent deafness in workers
If these technologies are still in the design and development stage, this is not the first time that the Jérémie Voix team has developed unusual earplugs. In many industries, such as aluminum smelters, noise can be deafening to workers. With his team, Mr. Voix designed earplugs that protect workers’ ears, while allowing them to hear “useful” signals, such as alarms and the voices of their co-workers, without being disturbed. they have to wear a microphone. When speaking, the larynx vibrates the cranium and the walls of the ear canal, and produces a cavernous sound, explains the expert. The team developed a device within the cap that recreates the sound of the voice by increasing the high frequencies of the sound from these low vibrations.
“The Jonquière workers told us: ‘it’s great, not only are you protecting my hearing, but also my respiratory tract, because I no longer need to take off my mask to talk with my colleagues” ”, rejoices Mr. Voix, who finds great motivation in creating innovations that significantly improve the quality of life of society. He is also careful to follow clear ethical lines to innovate and protect these technologies of less noble uses.
“There are people who see these technologies and who say to themselves that we could do cognitive marketing, for example by observing the attention and interest of the consumer when he sees an advertisement on the Internet,” he illustrates. he. To preserve the privacy of users, the researcher is keen to develop technologies that operate autonomously, and that do not necessarily need to send a lot of data into the cloud.
A winning partnership
In all of these projects, Jérémie Voix does not work alone. The knowledge and technologies that he develops within his Research Chair with his students at 2e cycle often arrive on the market through the company EERS, with which it has worked for 20 years.
“Being in an environment where you are close to the application is very stimulating! said the researcher. A professor who does research, first of all, does a lot of fundraising. I am very privileged, I have access to a lot of resources to carry out my projects and train my students in good conditions. “He specifies that he retains his autonomy to choose his research projects and that he draws a very clear line framing the university projects of the students to prevent them from becoming a low-cost workforce for the company. .
Since 2019, EERS has a partnership with a multinational injecting new funds into business development and research. The funds have enabled EERS to expand its team and hire engineers specializing in in-ear technologies, and to retain the next generation of ETS-trained workers in the province. “It could be a model or it could encourage other teachers [à travailler de cette manière] », Estimates the researcher.