Machine learning specialist behind the algorithm that translates motion sensor data into precise patient recovery metrics, bridging wearable hardware and data-driven physical therapy.
Knee Artificial Intelligence Rehabilitation Sleeve
Recovery, measured to the degree.
A knee sleeve with two inertial sensors. It measures how the joint actually moves, all day, and turns that movement into rehabilitation data a therapist can act on.
Rehabilitation is judged on the moments a clinician can see.
A clinic visit captures a snapshot: a goniometer reading, a few reps under supervision. Most of a recovery happens between visits, at home, unmeasured. KAIRS is the layer that measures the in-between.
Clinic session
Unmeasured
Measured by KAIRS
The hardware
An engineered sleeve, not a tracker.
- 01 Compression knit sleeve A soft sleeve that holds two sensors in a fixed relationship to the joint.
- 02 Proximal IMU An inertial measurement unit above the knee reads the orientation of the thigh.
- 03 Distal IMU A second unit below the knee reads the orientation of the shank.
- 04 One Bluetooth LE link A single peripheral bridges both IMUs to the phone, notifying about 20 times a second.
- 05 Joint tracking Knee flexion is the relative orientation of the two segments, computed continuously.
How the angle is measured
Two segments. Two sensors. One angle.
- 01 Two segments The thigh and the shank meet at the knee. Their relationship is the joint angle.
- 02 Two sensors One IMU rides on each segment, held in place by the sleeve.
- 03 Two orientations Each IMU reports how far its segment has tilted from vertical.
- 04 One relative angle Thigh tilt plus shank tilt is knee flexion. A straight leg reads 0°.
- 05 Into the app The angle streams to the phone and fills the dial the patient is watching.
Movement becomes data
Every rep, every degree, on the record.
The same readings a patient sees while exercising are what a therapist reviews afterwards. Below: the live set running on a simulated stream of sleeve telemetry.
Bend a little further
- Thigh IMU
- 0°
- Shank IMU
- 0°
- Peak today
- 0°
Repetition tracking · hysteresis 10°
0 / 10
repetitions · a rep lands when flexion crosses 110°
0°target 110°130°
Sensor connectivity
-
Proximal IMU · thigh Battery 96% · −58 dBm
-
Distal IMU · shank Battery 91% · −61 dBm
payload 0.0,96,91,-58,-61
Recovery trend · weekly best flexion · 24 weeks
—latest
Sample series from the app. Sleeve sessions solid, camera-only sessions hollow.
No sleeve nearby? The KAIRS app falls back to camera-based pose tracking so a session is never blocked. Camera measurements are labelled as such and carry a ±5° caveat wherever they appear.
A bend of the knee becomes a decision a therapist can make.
- 01 Movement The knee bends through a prescribed exercise, at home or in clinic.
- 02 Dual IMUs Two inertial units on the sleeve report segment orientation at ~20 Hz.
- 03 Biomechanical measurement Relative orientation becomes flexion, extension, peak range and rep count.
- 04 KAIRS analysis Readings are held against the therapist’s targets, band and milestone criteria.
- 05 Recovery insight Coaching for the patient now; trend, pain and compliance for the clinician later.
Patient and clinician
One measurement, two readers.
The patient sees coaching in the moment. The therapist sees the numbers behind it, a weekly summary that posts itself, and which tracking mode recorded each session. Plan changes land in the same thread.
PATIENT · HOME SESSION
Dr. Riya Patel, PT
Replies within 1 business day
Shared automatically · week 4 summary
- 96°
- flexion
- 3°
- extension
- 2.3
- avg pain
- 6/7
- days
Extension looks great. Hold the squat 1 s longer at the bottom this week — your hold average is 4.8 s, aim for 6.
Plan updated · Mini squats hold 5 s → 6 s
Got it. The right side felt sharper yesterday around 45°.
Recognition
Judged in the open.
Since 2024 KAIRS has been put in front of clinicians, biomedical engineers, entrepreneurs and investors across eight competitions — from an early device-design track to an international digital health field. Each round of review moved the sleeve forward.
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Oct 252024
Medtronic / BMES Student Design Competition
Second Place · Finalist
BMES and Medtronic challenge students to design the next generation of medical devices. Second place in the AI/ML for orthopedic and sports injuries track, presenting the foundational prototype to biomedical industry leaders.
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Apr 142025
NC State VenturePack Challenge
$12,000 Grand Prize Winner
NC State's early-stage venture challenge. The grand prize became the first real funding behind manufacturing the smart wearable.
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Apr 142025
NC State Innovation and Entrepreneurship
$500 Audience Choice Award
Awarded alongside the VenturePack grand prize by audience vote — recognition from the community and from people who had been through rehabilitation themselves.
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Nov 142025
WolfDen Competition
$1,000 Second Place Winner
Modeled after 'Shark Tank', WolfDen puts student ventures in front of real investors and entrepreneurial leaders. Second place, judged by experienced venture investors.
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Mar 32026
Innovate Carolina
$2,000 1789 Student Venture Fund Awardee
The 1789 Student Venture Fund backs student entrepreneurs. University support that accelerated the prototyping phase and opened a network of mentors.
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Mar 162026
Johns Hopkins Healthcare Design Competition
Digital Health Finalist
One of 24 finalists from 568 applicants across 43 countries. Presenting to clinicians at a competition for patient-centric innovation took KAIRS to an international audience.
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Apr 232026
i4 Competition
$7,000 1st Place Winner
i4 asks teams to design solutions to pressing healthcare problems. First place, with judge feedback that continues to shape the hardware and the adaptive training algorithm.
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Apr 242026
Joan and Chester Luby Pitch Competition
$15,000 Audience Choice Winner
A pitch competition celebrating innovation and entrepreneurship. The largest award to date, voted by an audience with their own connections to the challenges of recovery.
Founding team
The people behind KAIRS.
A multidisciplinary founding team spanning biomedical engineering, machine learning, hardware, rehabilitation and medical technology innovation. KAIRS began with two founders' own orthopedic surgeries and the recovery that followed.
Biomedical engineer developing patient-focused medical technologies, with experience in physiological sensing, ultrasound-based systems and translational device development.
Clinical applications specialist with 3.5 years of experience in knee biomechanics research, and direct rehabilitation insight from his own ACL reconstruction.
Biomedical engineer working across wearable sensing, medical-device development and healthcare innovation — from hardware prototyping to clinical needs finding and commercialization.
- STATUS
- KAIRS supports a rehabilitation plan and does not replace clinical judgement. It is not a medical device and has not been evaluated by any regulator.
Movement in. Recovery, measured.
Make every degree of recovery visible.
Join the waitlist for the KAIRS sleeve and app. We'll write when there's something real to try.