---
title: Where-able Sensors
date: 2022-11-02T05:30:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/where-able-sensors"
section: Articles
---
# Where-able Sensors

*November 2, 2022* — by [Maria Herd M.A. ’19](/author/maria-herd)


> Researchers’ Robotic Activity Sensor System Travels Around Your Body to Optimize Monitoring

*Calico Split Screen 1920x1080 1 — Tiny, robotic wearable sensors developed by UMD researchers can move around the body on flexible fabric tracks to provide movement tracking from wherever they are most effective.*

Fitness trackers and smartwatches are widely used to monitor health, activity and exercise, but they’re pretty sedentary themselves. They stay strapped on your wrist or clipped to your clothing despite the fact it’s more effective to monitor different areas—your upper body for breathing, for example, or your wrist to track typing or writing.

Now, researchers at the University of Maryland are putting wearable sensors on track to do their best work—literally—with a miniature robotics system capable of traversing numerous locations on the human body.

Their device, called [Calico](https://smartlab.cs.umd.edu/publication/calico), mimics a toy train by traveling on a cloth track that can run up and down users’ limbs and around their torso, operating independently of external guidance through the use of magnets, sensors and connectors. Their [paper describing the project](https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3550323)was recently published in the *ACM Journal on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies* and presented at [UBICOMP](https://ubicomp.org/ubicomp2022), a conference on ubiquitous computing.


*closeup of wearable sensor on wrist*



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[Youtube Embed related to Where-able Sensors](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1Mcj5uil6Q)





**Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research)


**Tags:** [Computer Science](https://today.umd.edu/topic/computer-science), [Health and Fitness](https://today.umd.edu/topic/health-and-fitness), [Robotics](https://today.umd.edu/topic/robotics), [Theatre, Dance & Performance Studies](https://today.umd.edu/topic/theatre-dance-performance-studies), [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research)


**Units:** [College of Arts and Humanities](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-arts-and-humanities), [College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-computer-mathematical-and-natural-sciences)