Ultra-Robust and Extensible Fibrous Mechanical Sensors for Wearable Smart Healthcare

Adv Mater. 2022 May;34(20):e2107511. doi: 10.1002/adma.202107511. Epub 2022 Apr 11.

Abstract

Fibrous material with high strength and large stretchability is an essential component of high-performance wearable electronic devices. Wearable electronic systems require a material that is strong to ensure durability and stability, and a wide range of strain to expand their applications. However, it is still challenging to manufacture fibrous materials with simultaneously high mechanical strength and the tensile property. Herein, the ultra-robust (≈17.6 MPa) and extensible (≈700%) conducting microfibers are developed and demonstrated their applications in fabricating fibrous mechanical sensors. The mechanical sensor shows high sensitivity in detecting strains that have high strain resolution and a large detection range (from 0.0075% to 400%) simultaneously. Moreover, low frequency vibrations between 0 and 40 Hz are also detected, which covers most tremors that occur in the human body. As a further step, a wearable and smart health-monitoring system has been developed using the fibrous mechanical sensor, which is capable of monitoring health-related physiological signals, including muscle movement, body tremor, wrist pulse, respiration, gesture, and six body postures to predict and diagnose diseases, which will promote the wearable telemedicine technology.

Keywords: conducting microfibers; fibrous mechanical sensors; smart health-monitoring system; wearable telemedicine technology.

MeSH terms

  • Delivery of Health Care
  • Humans
  • Monitoring, Physiologic
  • Respiration
  • Wearable Electronic Devices*