Researchers at the UBC Faculty of Medicine are advancing a transformative new approach to sports and human performance monitoring through collaborative research funded by Samsung Electronics Canada.
The new project aims to develop next-generation wearable sports monitoring technology that provides athletes with direct, real-time measurements of muscle metabolism.
By combining advanced sensors and artificial intelligence, the researchers aim to develop new systems that monitor how muscles use energy during exercise through non-invasive measurements. This physiological insight could one-day be critical for improving athletic performance, preventing overuse injuries and determining optimal timing for return to sport following injury.
Beyond elite athletics, the technology has potential applications including rehabilitation, occupational health, military and aerospace human performance monitoring and personalized exercise prescription.
Lead researchers Dr. Babak Shadgan, Department of Orthopaedics and School of Biomedical Engineering and Dr. Ali Bashashati, School of Biomedical Engineering and Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, are conducting the project in close collaboration with Samsung R&D Canada. The strategic partnership between UBC and Samsung is at the cutting-edge of advanced digital health and sensor innovation.
Promising early results from year one
In its first year, the project has already generated encouraging pilot data demonstrating the feasibility and potential clinical and performance applications.
Using synchronized wearable and laboratory-based sensors, including near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), photoplethysmography (PPG), electromyography (EMG), and metabolic reference systems, the research team successfully collected high-quality physiological data from healthy volunteers during incremental and endurance exercise protocols.
Notably, the team has developed an initial artificial intelligence framework that estimates the muscle lactate threshold—a key marker of exercise intensity and fatigue.
“The early data strongly support the feasibility of this approach,” said Dr. Shadgan. “We are now positioned to move from proof-of-concept toward scalable, wearable solutions that can provide actionable physiological insight during exercise, without relying on invasive or impractical testing methods.”
A milestone in translational biomedical engineering at UBC
The research award was granted following a competitive, multi-stage internal selection process coordinated by UBC Innovation Partnerships in collaboration with Samsung Canada. The funding award from Samsung Electronics Canada highlights UBC’s growing leadership in translational biomedical engineering, wearable health technologies and data-driven human performance research.
As the project enters its next phase, the team will focus on expanding participant cohorts, refining real-time algorithms, and developing custom wearable sensor prototypes, further strengthening the pathway toward real-world deployment and commercialization.
The work of Drs. Shadgan and Bashashati and their interdisciplinary research team highlights the potential impact of this UBC–Samsung collaboration on the future of human performance monitoring.
This story was originally published on the UBC School of Biomedical Engineering website.