It should come as no surprise that students in Acadia University’s computer science department are doing work that seems right out of science fiction. With Dr. Esteve Hassan’s new project, if Fantastic Voyage pops into your head, it’s understandable.

Dr. Hassan (Computer Science) is leading a project that will provide data analysis for a nanotechnology capsule that a patient can swallow, and it will transmit comprehensive data of their entire gastrointestinal system (GI). The project is a natural fit for Dr. Hassan. His specialty is IoT—the Internet of Things—along with wireless sensor monitoring, especially related to health care e-health applications.

“We believe technology can be used to release the pressure on the healthcare system,” he says.

The project is part of a collaboration with researchers at a leading Irish university—the people who will be developing the capsule—that could lead to breakthroughs in understanding how our GI works. They hope the work will help understand conditions such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and irritable bowel disease (IBD). Funding for this project comes from NSERC, contributing $82,600, and the Irish university, contributing $539,000.

While his colleagues in Ireland are designing a capsule that can monitor the entire gastrointestinal systems, Dr. Hassan and his Acadia students will analyze the data and facilitate the AI learning.

“AI and machine learning need data. Our role is to provide the data, including analyzing the capsule locations throughout the GI,” he explains. That part is crucial: it’s not only what data is being captured, it’s also where in a patient’s body the data comes from. Our GI system is 30 feet long.

A multi-disciplinary approach

The project is the definition of multi-disciplinary, including experts and researchers in computer science, electronics, physics, surgery, biology, and mechanics.

The capsule needs to be packaged with considerations for weight, size, and power source. A healthy GI takes about 24 to 48 hours from ingestion to evacuation. For an unhealthy GI, such as with a patient with IBS or IBD, it can take several days.

Developing the capsule involves using innovative nanomaterials and circuitry, integrating miniature sensors and long-lasting power to record pressure and movement throughout the GI tract over several days. And it has to be biocompatible and swallowable. Creating this small pill will be no small feat.

“I always call research another form of teaching. The students are the key to this story. They are the ones driving the research. You give the students the challenge, and they turn it into a learning experience,” Dr. Hassan says. “When they are part of applied research, they are part of something significant.”

The capsule will transmit data to a device the person wears on their side for the duration that the capsule is in their system, and then the data will be downloaded to a computer. Then Dr. Hassan and his students can start analyzing the data.

To do that, they need to build the AI machine learning platform because there is no comparable data for them to use as a benchmark. That’s just one of the challenges for their team.

“Bodies are big attenuators, so that’s a challenge to get the data to the monitor. Our second challenge is to locate the capsule in the GI. That’s very important to the success of the project. That will be our first role, the thorough analysis of all the data received in the monitor.”

“We need to establish a healthy baseline, that will help us a lot.”

From simulation to application

The project funding is for two years with the option to extend to a third year. The first stage involves building a GI physical simulator and 3D printing a basic capsule to see how it goes through. That will give Dr. Hassan and his team their first data sets. He’s excited that the two schools will be sharing their intellectual properties.

“Students get the research experience and the exposure to applications of the skills they are learning. It will be great for us to learn. It will be so multidisciplinary,” he says. They will play a central role, from building the GI simulator to training machine-learning models on newly collected data. He is planning for two undergrad and two graduate students in computer science to be on the team with him.

Dr. Hassan explains that there are currently swallowable capsules with built-in cameras that people take to tell if a person needs a colonoscopy or not. But that’s all they tell; they are not diagnostic. Nor do they cover the entire GI system. And these methods are very invasive and uncomfortable.

The capsule they are developing in this project has the potential to replace colonoscopies in many cases. It is diagnostic, measuring the motility and pressure within our GI system, giving a more thorough analysis of how our GI works. AI will detect motility disorders earlier and with greater accuracy than current techniques.

“Anything that can help alleviate the pressure on our healthcare system will be beneficial. It’s non-invasive, removes complexities, and reduces the need for a specialist’s time. For instance, a nurse or technician can administer the capsule and set up the monitor,” he explains.

He is equally optimistic about what his students will contribute to and take from this challenging project.

“The investment is in the students. We can learn more from them. Give them the resources, and they will be able to carry on the work.”

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Esteve J Hassan, Ph.D., PEng, is Associate Professor, Jodrey School of Computer Science and the Ivan Curry School of Engineering. He is a former Canada Industry Research Chair and is  Head of Acadia AIoT Research Hub (AARH).

Get the Acadia experience with Dr. Hassan

Take Advanced Programming and Computer Architecture courses with Dr. Hassan in Winter 2026.