Katherine Brown – katherine.brown@utdallas.edu
University of Texas at Dallas
Department of Bioengineering
Richardson, TX 75080
United States
Rouzbeh M. Imenabadi
Dinesh Bhatia
Popular version of 4pBAb2 – Towards a wearable ultrasound bladder monitoring system
Presented at the 190th ASA Meeting
Read the abstract at https://eppro01.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASASPRING2026
–The research described in this Acoustics Lay Language Paper may not have yet been peer reviewed–
Today we schedule a medical imaging scan in a clinic, doctor’s office, or at a hospital. What if we could self-monitor with a wearable unit?
We are working towards enabling practical wearable units and have taken two key steps to making this a reality.
First, in this work we show a method to shrink the electronics needed for an ultrasound machine to fit your body. It uses the strength of AI computer vision to “see” with a sensor that is stripped down in capability and missing bits of information; AI fills in the missing information. This allows us to implement a wider field of view, about 4 times wider what has been previously achieved.
Figure 1: Wearable ultrasound unit placed on the abdomen and images displayed on a smartphone (Image by Google Gemini 4/2026)
Second, it uses a new type of ultrasound sensor that is based on the same technology of high-volume commercial semiconductors, so it can be made cheaply, and with high accuracy. With less expensive sensors, we can implement larger arrays at a still reasonable cost. In our work we show a 2D pattern of elements which give us a 3D view into the body.
Putting together these two concepts we demonstrate a wearable imaging system a bit larger than a deck of playing cards. It has a wide field of view and can continuously scan the body in the course of daily activities using ultrasound. There are many potential applications of the technology demonstrated in this unit – abdominal imaging monitoring for bladder volume or fluid in the lungs, heart imaging for ejection fraction, large vessel imaging to sense oxygenation levels, and many more.