Edge-Based Temporal Fusion Transformer for Multi-Horizon Blood Glucose Prediction

Deep learning models have achieved the state of the art in blood glucose (BG) prediction, which has been shown to improve type 1 diabetes (T1D) management. However, most existing models can only provide single-horizon prediction and face a variety of real-world challenges, such as lacking hardware implementation and interpretability. In this work, we introduce a new deep learning framework, the edge-based temporal fusion Transformer (E-TFT), for multi-horizon BG prediction, and implement the trained model on a customized wristband with a system on a chip (Nordic nRF52832) for edge computing. E-TFT employs a self-attention mechanism to extract long-term temporal dependencies and enables post-hoc explanation for feature selection. On a clinical dataset with 12 T1D subjects, it achieved a mean root mean square error of 19.09 ± 2.47 mg/dL and 32.31 ± 3.79 mg/dL for 30 and 60-minute prediction horizons, respectively, and outperformed all the considered baseline methods, such as N-BEATS and N-HiTS. The proposed model is effective for multi-horizon BG prediction and can be deployed on wearable devices to enhance T1D management in clinical settings.