In the 11 months since Kai Sensors Inc. was founded, the Manoa-based high-technology firm has won a prestigious national innovation award, received a six-figure contract from the U.S. Army to develop a chip for an unmanned ground sensor, and completed a prototype for a remote respiration monitoring system.

Andrea Yuen, Kai Sensors chief executive officer, said company executives are thrilled with what has been accomplished in such a short time, but they acknowledge that much more needs to be done before they can claim any success. Kai Sensors' wireless vital signs monitoring system still needs Food and Drug Administration approval and partnerships have to be developed to market the technology, but given that the company is less than a year old, Kai Sensors appears to be well on its way.

"I feel good about the components that we've been able to put in the company because it supports what the state is trying to do," Yuen said of Gov. Linda Lingle's push to promote innovation in science and technology." Hopefully, we are a good model for the whole high-tech industry and entrepreneurial community here."

Kai Sensors was incorporated in August 2007 as a spinoff company of the Doppler radar technology that was developed at the University of Hawai'i. Researchers there came up with a way to detect human vital signs from a distance without contact with the subject.

Dustin Shindo, CEO of Hoku Scientific, worked with the UH's Office of Technology Transfer and Economic Development to obtain the exclusive license to the technology and then co-founded Kai Sensors. The UH's OTTED evaluates, markets and licenses technology owned by the school and promotes university collaboration on research projects.

Once Kai Sensors owned the license to the technology, its staff developed its own intellectual property portfolio focused on medical devices. At the center of that product line is its wireless technology to monitor vital signs, including heart and respiratory rates.

A prototype of the noncontact respiration monitoring device was unveiled June 16 and Yuen said she expects FDA approval by the end of the year. She said Kai Sensors is negotiating with several medical device companies to manufacture and market the product and should be in commercial use in 2010 or 2011.

Yuen said the technology can be used by hospitals, clinics, doctors and in the home, particularly by elderly patients who need monitoring.

"The whole trend is remote patient monitoring. It's a growing field as the population ages and healthcare costs rise," Yuen said. "There's a major movement toward having people in homes being able to take their vital signs and be monitored. Our products will fit nicely into that market as well as into delivering better solutions for hospital markets."

Earlier this year, Kai Sensors was awarded the 2008 Frost & Sullivan Technology Innovation of the Year Award for its work on remote monitoring. Frost & Sullivan is a national marketing and research consulting organization and Yuen said the recognition was welcomed.

"That has been very helpful in terms of putting us on the map nationally and internationally so we have gotten a lot of attention and interest," she said.

Kai Sensors also is expanding the application of its wireless sensing technology after being awarded a $850,000 contract by the Army to develop a chip that integrates radar capabilities with unmanned ground sensors. Yuen said the technology will allow Army personnel to detect live people in an area without placing them in harm's way.

Once developed, she said, the chip could have a dual use by the military and civilian communities.

"The chips that we develop for the Army we could use in our smaller devices for medical uses. That would be a good potential non-medical route to go as well," Yuen said.

Yuen added that Kai Sensors' staff of 12 also is working on other projects to help the company expand its product base. Kai Sensors employs UH graduates who trained under the researchers who developed the wireless technology, as well as engineers from Silicon Valley.

She said the accomplishments of Kai Sensors are not only pluses for the firm, but also for the state.

"It's important for the reputation of Hawai'i to have a successful company or a high-profile company in technology so that people's perceptions of Hawai'i change," Yuen said. "We hope to help the state in that regard in terms of changing perceptions, but also giving other entrepreneurs in the state motivation to try as well, that if we can do it, you can do it too."