Nam Bui

Assistant Professor

I'm the founder and director of the Intelligent Networked Systems and Cybernetics Laboratory (InsCy Lab) at the University of Colorado Denver . Our research is dedicated to creating state-of-the-art and practical Intelligent Cybernetic Systems. At InsCy Lab, we believe that the intersection of diverse expertise in exploring impactful multidisciplinary projects fosters breakthrough discoveries. Our topics focus on creating innovative sensing techniques to improve mobile/wearable health monitoring systems, advancing sensing methods for different types of living organisms, and designing embedded intelligent systems that leverage the rapid advancements in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

Our works have been recognized by Best Paper Awards at ACM MobiCom 2019 and ACM MobiCom S3 2017, a Best Paper Runner-Up at ACM MobiCom 2017, a Best Paper Nominee at ACM SenSys 2018, an ACM SigMobile Research Highlights in 2020, and a Communication of ACM Research Highlights in 2021.

I am offering fully-funded Ph.D. student positions in the fields of mobile/wearable health sensing systems, smart sensing technologies related to artificial intelligence, and intelligent embedded systems. If you are interested, please send your CV and transcripts to me at nam.bui@ucdenver.edu.

Contact

AddressDepartment of Electrical Engineering, University of Colorado Denver North Classroom 1200 Larimer Street, Denver, CO 80204
Emailnam.bui@ucdenver.edu
PhoneTBA

Application Specifications!

Selected News

03 - 2024: VitaWave Inc. insired by eBP project made it to the finalist of New Venture Challenge "Deep Tech Prize Night"!. (New!)

03 - 2024: Our proposal has been awarded funding from Department of Defense (DoD) STTR. (New!)

02 - 2024: Joseph Oler, Luis Sandoval, and Jordan Forestell received EURēCA Awards for the Diatery Sensing Project. Congrats Team!

12 - 2023: Received Teaching Innovation Awards for the IoT & Cyber-Physical Systems Course.

11 - 2023: Delivered a Talk on Wearable Health Sensing @ National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

10 - 2023: Our comprehensive sleep study on the effects of closed-loop acoustic stimulation is accepted to Nature Scientific Reports.

08 - 2023: Joined Electrical Engineering Department, University of Colorado Denver as Assistant Professor.

05 - 2023: Honored for the leadership potential in "Presenting tomorrow’s leaders: The class of 2023" , University of Colorado Boulder.

04 - 2023: Gave talk at the University of Colorado Denver.

03 - 2023: Technical Advisor at NowVitals.

06 - 2022: PROS paper is accepted to ACM MobiCom 2022.

07 - 2021: Communication of the ACM Highlights 2021 and Technical Perspective (eBP paper).

07 - 2021: Facetouch detection paper is accepted to ACM IMWUT 2021.

06 - 2021: Microsleep detection paper is accepted to IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing.

09 - 2020: DroneScale and Non-Invasive Glucose monitoring papers are accepted to ACM SenSys 2020.

07 - 2020: ACM SIGMOBILE Research Highlights Award 2020 (eBP paper).

04 - 2020: Received Outstanding Research Award Spring 2020 .

03 - 2020: Painometry and WAKE papers are accepted to ACM MobiSys 2020.

01 - 2020: Smartphone-Based SpO2 Measurement paper is published in ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN).

...

11 - 2019: Received Ralph J. Slutz Student Excellence Award Fall 2019 in Computer Science.

10 - 2019: Best Paper Award (eBP paper) at ACM MobiCom 2019 .

08 - 2019: Smartphone-Based SpO2 Measurement paper is accepted to ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN).

07 - 2019: eBP paper is accepted to ACM MobiCom 2019.

06 - 2019: eBP paper has been conditionally accepted to ACM MobiCom 2019.

04 - 2019: Automated Asthma score paper is accepted to Pediatric Pulmonology Journal.

11 - 2018: Best Paper Runner-up Award (Capband paper) at ACM SenSys 2018.

07 - 2018: Capband paper has been conditionally accepted to ACM SenSys 2018.

02 - 2018: TYTH paper is accepted to ACM MobiSys 2018.

10 - 2017: Best Paper Award Nominee (PhO2 paper) at ACM SenSys 2017.

10 - 2017: 2nd prize (PhO2 (MobileOx)) at ACM MobiCom'17 App Contest.

07 - 2017: PhO2 paper is accepted to ACM SenSys'17.

Collaborators

Publications

Selected Conferences and Jounals

A comprehensive study on the efficacy of a wearable sleep aid device featuring closed-loop real-time acoustic stimulation.
Nature Scientific Reports
A. Nguyen, G. Pogoncheff, B. Xuan Dong, N. Bui, H. Truong, N. Pham, L. Nguyen, H. Nguyen-Huu, K. Bui-Diem, Q. Vu-Tran-Thien, S. Duong-Quy, S. Ha, T. Vu.
Impact factor: 4.9.
PROS: an efficient pattern-driven compressive sensing framework for low-power biopotential-based wearables with on-chip intelligence.
ACM MobiCom 2022
N. Pham, H. Jia, M. Tran, T. Dinh, N. Bui, Y. Kwon, D. Ma, P. Nguyen, C. Mascolo, T. Vu.
(56 out of 314 submissions, acceptance ratio: 17.8%).
FaceSense: sensing face touch with an ear-worn system.
ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies
V. Kakaraparthi, Q. Shao, C. Carver, T. Pham, N. Bui, P. Nguyen, X. Zhou, T. Vu
Impact factor: 5.577.
Detection of Microsleep Events with a Behind-the-ear Wearable System.
IEEE Transactions on Mobile Computing
N. Pham, T. Dinh, T. Kim, Z. Raghebi, N. Bui, H. Truong, T. Nguyen, F. B. Kashani, A. Halbower, T. Dinh, P. Nguyen, T. Vu
Impact factor: 5.577.
DroneScale: Drone Load Estimation Via Remote Passive RF Sensing.
ACM SenSys 2020
Phuc Nguyen, Vimal Kakaraparthi, Nam Bui, Nikshep Umamahesh, Nhat Pham, Hoang Truong, Yeswanth Guddeti, Dinesh Bharadia, Eric Frew, Richard Han, Dan Massey, Tam Vu.
(44 out of 213 submissions, acceptance ratio: 20.6%).
Noninvasive Glucose Monitoring Using Polarized Light. [Slides] [Video]
ACM SenSys 2020
T. Li, D. Bai, T. Prioleau, N. Bui, T. Vu, X. Zhou
(44 out of 213 submissions, acceptance ratio: 20.6%).
WAKE: A Behind-the-ear Wearable System for Microsleep Detection. [Slides] [Video]
ACM MobiSys 2020
Nhat Pham, Tuan Dinh, Zohreh Raghebi, Taeho Kim, Nam Bui, Phuc Nguyen, Hoang Truong, Farnoush Banaei-Kashani, Ann Halbower, Thang Dinh, Tam Vu.
(34 out of 175 submissions, acceptance ratio: 19.4%).
Painometry - Wearable and objective quantification system for acute postoperative pain. [Video]
ACM MobiSys 2020
Hoang Truong, Nam Bui, Zohreh Raghebi, Marta Ceko, Nhat Pham, Phuc Nguyen, Anh Nguyen, Taeho Kim, Katrina Siegfried, Evan Stene, Taylor Tvrdy, Logan Weinman, Thomas Payne, Devin Burke, Thang Dinh, Sidney D'Mello, Farnoush Banaei-Kashani, Tor Wager, Pavel Goldstein, and Tam Vu.
(34 out of 175 submissions, acceptance ratio: 19.4%).
Smartphone-Based SpO2 Measurement by Exploiting Wavelengths Separation and Chromophore Compensation.
ACM Transactions on Sensor Networks (TOSN)
N. Bui, A. Nguyen, P. Nguyen, H. Truong, A. Ashok, T. Dinh, R. Deterding, T. Vu
Impact factor: 2.313.
eBP: A Wearable System For Frequentand Comfortable Blood Pressure Monitoring From User’s Ear. [Slides] [Video]
ACM MobiCom 2019 - The 25th Annual International Conference on Mobile Computing and Networking.
Nam Bui, Nhat Pham, Jessica Jacqueline Barnitz, Zhanan Zou, Phuc Nguyen, Hoang Truong, Taeho Kim, Nicholas Farrow, Anh Nguyen, Jianliang Xiao, Robin Deterding, Thang Dinh and Tam Vu.
(55 out of 290 submissions, acceptance ratio: 18.9%).
Best Paper Award 2019; GetMobile Research Highlight 2019; ACM SIGMOBILE Research Highlight 2020; CACM Research Highlight 2021
Novel Pediatric Automated Respiratory Score Using Physiologic Data and Machine Learning in Asthma.
Pediatric Pulmonology Journal
Amanda I. Messinger, N. Bui, B. Wagner, S. Szefler, T. Vu and R. Deterding
Impact factor: 3.159.
CapBand: Battery-free Successive Capacitance Sensing Wristband for Hand Gesture Recognition.
ACM SenSys 2018
H. Truong, S. Zhang, U. Muncuk, P. Nguyen, N. Bui, A. Nguyen, Q. Lv, K. Chowdhury, T. Dinh, and T. Vu
(23 out of 147 submissions, acceptance ratio: 15.6%).
Best Paper Runner-Up
TYTH-Typing On Your Teeth: Tongue-Teeth Localization for Human-Computer Interface.
ACM MobiSys 2018
P. Nguyen, N. Bui, A. Nguyen, H. Truong, A. Suresh, M. Whitlock, D. Pham, T. Dinh, and T. Vu
(37 out of 138 submissions, acceptance ratio: 26.8%).
PhO2: Smartphone based Blood Oxygen Level Measurement Systems using Near-IR and RED Wave-guided Light.
ACM SenSys 2017
N. Bui, A. Nguyen, P. Nguyen, H. Truong, A. Ashok, T. Dinh, R. Deterding and T. Vu
(26 out of 151 submissions, acceptance ratio: 17.2%).
Best Paper Award Nominee; 2nd Prize ACM MobiCom App Contest
Photometry based Blood Oxygen Estimation through Smartphone Cameras.
ACM MobiCom 2017 - S3 Workshop
N. Bui, A. Nguyen, P. Nguyen, H. Truong, A. Ashok, T. Dinh, R. Deterding and T. Vu
Best Paper Award

...

DEMO: Low-power Capacitive Sensing Wristband for Hand Gesture Recognition.
ACM MobiCom 2017 - S3 Workshop
H. Truong, P. Nguyen, A. Nguyen, N. Bui, and T. Vu

Capacitive sensing 3D-printed Wristband for Enriched Hand Gesture Recognition.
ACM MobiSys-WearSys 2017
H. Truong, P. Nguyen, A. Nguyen, N. Bui, and T. Vu
Best Senior Design Project CU Denver

Predicting Asthma Severity Using Machine Learning Algorithms: A Pilot Study.
American Thoracic Society 2017 International Conference
A. Messinger, B. Nam, T. Vu, R. Deterding

A non-linear GMM KL and GUMI kernel for SVM using GMM-UBM supervector in home acoustic event classification.
IEICE Journal
N. N. Bui, J. Y. Kim, T. D. Trinh

A new cbir system using sift combined with neural network and graph-based segmentation.
ACIIDS 2010
Nguyen Duc Anh, Bui Ngoc Nam, Nguyen Huy Hoang

Patents

Tongue localization, teeth interaction, and detection system.
US Patent 11,397,470
T. Vu, P. Nguyen, N. Bui, R. Deterding.
Health Sticker: A Modular Adhesive Platform Monitoring Vital Signals.
WO 2020160326
T. Vu, R. Deterding, N. Bui, N. Pham.
A wearable system for frequent and comfortable blood pressure monitoring from user's ear.
US Patent App. 17/630,425
T. Vu, R. Deterding, N. Pham, N. N. Bui.
A Wearable System for Behind-The-Ear Sensing and Stimulation.
US Patent App. 17/610,419
T. Vu, R. Deterding, A. Halbower, N. Pham, N.N. Bui, F. Banaei-Kashani.
A Wearable System for Intra-Ear Sensing and Stimulating.
US Patent App. 17/642,621
T. Vu, R. Deterding, F. Banaei-Kashani, N. Pham, N.N. Bui.
Respiration Rate Measurement System.
US Patent App. 17/284,066
T. N. Vu, R. Deterding, H. Truong, N.N. Bui.

Research

DroneScale - Drone Load Estimation Via RF

We present a novel passive RF system, namely DroneScale, to monitor the wireless signals transmitted by commercial drones and then confirm their models and loads. Our key technical contribution is a proposed technique to passively capture vibration at high resolution (i.e., 1Hz vibration) from afar, which was not possible before. We prototype DroneScale using COTS RF components and illustrate that it can monitor the body vibration of a drone at the targeted resolution.

Noninvasive Glucose Monitoring Using Polarized Light

The primary innovation of our system is the ability to minimize light scattering from the skin and extract weak changes in light polarization to estimate glucose concentration, all using low-cost hardware. Our system exploits multiple wavelengths and light intensity levels to mitigate the effect of user diversity and confounding factors (e.g., collagen and elastin in the dermis). It then infers glucose concentration using a generic learning model, thus no additional calibration is needed. We design and fabricate a compact (17 cm x 10 cm x 5 cm) and low-cost (i.e., <$250) prototype using off-the-shelf hardware.

WAKE - A Behind-the-ear Wearable System for Microsleep Detection

WAKE is a novel wearable device that can detects microsleep by monitoring biosignals from the brain, eye movements, facial muscle contractions, and sweat gland activities from behind the user’s ears. To ensure reliablity of WAKE in the real-world, we introduce a Three-fold Cascaded Amplifying (3CA) technique to tame the motion artifacts and environmental noises for capturing high fidelity signals.

Painometry - Wearable quantification system for acute postoperative pain

Painometry is wearable system for objective quantification of users’ pain perception based on multiple physiological signals and facial expressions. The light-weight form factor and a minimal number of sensors enable the mobility of Painometry and its capability as a wearable and daily device.

eBP - Ear-based Blood Pressure Monitoring Wearable

An in-ear system utilizes a custom-built catheter balloon with a pulse sensor to measure blood pressure frominside the ear. In this project, we propose a non-ratio, adaptive oscillometric BP estimation algorithm specializedfor the artery located within the ear canal.

TYTH - Typing On Your Teeth

An outer ear wearable device allows people to type using solely their teeth based on the Facial Skin Deformation sensing information.

CapBand - Battery-free Gesture Recognition

A battery-free capacitance sensing wristband for enriched finger and hand gesture recognition with ultra-low-power sensing mechanism and multiple energy harvesting modalities.

PhO2 - Blood Oxygen Level Measurement System Using Smartphone Camera

A phone-based system aims at measuring blood oxygen saturation by using only a smartphone camera integrated with a dedicated 3D-print add-on and the thin film optical filters.

Activities

Review Activities:

ACM MobiCom, ACM MobiSys, ACM SenSys, ACM UbiComp, ACM HotMobile.
IEEE/ACM CHASE, IEEE/ACM IPSN, IEEE DCOSS
ACM Transactions on Cyber-Physical Systems, IEEE Journal of Biomedical and Health Informatics

Technical Program Committee:

ACM MobiCom - S3 Workshop 2017.

Advising Services:

Technical Advisor, NowVitals Inc.

Mentor

Anna Shaw

Fall, 2022 - Spring, 2023
Matthew King

Spring, 2020 - Spring, 2022
William Snider - Software Engineer, Amazon

Spring, 2020 - Spring, 2022
Jessica Jacqueline Barnitz - DevOps Software Engineering, Medtronic.

Fall, 2019
Kha Dinh Luong - PhD in Computer Science, UC Santa Barbara

Spring, 2018

Awards

Department of Defense (DoD) STTR 2024.
Teaching Innovation Award 2023.
CACM Highlights 2021.
ACM Sigmobile Highlights 2019.
Outstanding Research Awards 2019-2020.
Ralph J. Slutz Student Excellence Award 2019.
ACM MobiCom’19 Best Paper.
ACM SenSys’18 Best Paper Runner-up.
ACM SenSys’17 Best Paper Nominee.
ACM MobiCom’17 - S3 Best Paper.
ACM MobiCom’17 App Contest Runner-up.
ISIPS 2015 Excellent Oral Presentation

Teaching Courses

Spring 2024

ELEC 3520: IoT and Cyper-physical Systems

Electrical Engineering Dept., CU Denver
ELEC 2520: Embedded Systems

Electrical Engineering Dept., CU Denver

Fall 2023

ELEC 3817: Engineering Probability and Statistics

Electrical Engineering Dept., CU Denver

Spring 2023

ELEC 3520: IoT and Cyper-physical Systems

Electrical Engineering Dept., CU Denver
ELEC 2520: Embedded Systems

Electrical Engineering Dept., CU Denver

Spring 2017

CSCI 5446: Theory Of Automata (TA)

Computer Science Dept., CU Denver

Outreach

02/2024: With Jason McGowin, founder of VitaWave Inc. delivered our pitch for in-ear blood pressure monitoring at New Venture Challenge "Deep Tech Prize Night". We made it as one of the 5 finalist teams out of 27.