Students at the University of Arkansas' College of Engineering have developed a wireless biosensor that can record and monitor a football player's body temperature on the field in real time.

"Deaths due to heat stroke are preventable with new technology," says university professor Tom Costello. "Trainers and coaches on the sideline need to know whose body temperature is creeping up there. Once you have that information, you can pull the player off the field, hydrate, and give the body a chance to lose some of that heat and cool down."

Students Matt Graham, John Leach and James McCarty designed and built a system prototype that includes a thermocouple temperature sensor, a transmitter, two amplifiers and a base station receiver connected to a laptop with user interface software. The entire system was built using commercially available products.

The student project won second place at the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers' Open Gunlogson National Student Environmental Design Competition in Portland, Oregon on July 10.

The University of Arkansas' press release is here.