Blink-sensing glasses: A flexible iontronic sensing wearable for continuous blink monitoring

Rui Chen; Zhichao Zhang; Ka Deng; Dahu Wang; Hongmin Ke; Li Cai; Chi-Wei Chang; Tingrui Pan

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2021.102399

Blink-sensing glasses: A flexible iontronic sensing wearable for continuous blink monitoring

iScience. 2021 Apr 3;24(5):102399. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2021.102399. eCollection 2021 May 21.

Authors

Rui Chen^{1

2}, Zhichao Zhang^{3

4}, Ka Deng^{1

5}, Dahu Wang⁶, Hongmin Ke⁷, Li Cai⁷, Chi-Wei Chang¹, Tingrui Pan^{1

3

5

8

9}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Biomedical and Health Engineering, Shenzhen Institute of Advanced Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenzhen 518055, China.
² School of Computer Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China.
³ Micro-Nano Innovations (MiNI) Laboratory, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
⁴ TacSense, Inc., Woodland, CA 95776, USA.
⁵ Shenzhen Engineering Laboratory of Single-molecule Detection and Instrument Development Shenzhen 518055, China.
⁶ Department of Ophthalmology, LongHua Hospital Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shanghai 200032, China.
⁷ Department of Ophthalmology, Shenzhen University General Hospital, Shenzhen University Clinical Medical Academy, Shenzhen 518055, China.
⁸ Suzhou Institute for Advanced Research, University of Science and Technology of China, Suzhou 215123, China.
⁹ Department of Precision Machinery and Precision Instrumentation, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.

Abstract

Blink reflex has long been considered closely related to physiological states, from which abundant information on ocular health and activities can be revealed. In this study, a smart glasses wearable has been developed, incorporating a flexible and sensitive pressure sensor, to monitor blink patterns by continuously detecting ocular muscular movements, referred to as blink-sensing glasses. By applying the emerging flexible iontronic sensing (FITS) sensor with the sensitivity of 340 pF/mmHg, the skin pressure variations induced by movements of the orbicularis oculi muscles can be monitored in real time. The blink-sensing glasses can successfully capture blink patterns with a high accuracy of 96.3% and have been used to differentiate the blink features from both dry-eye subjects and healthy controls. This device can be potentially used as a new clinical and research monitoring tool for continuous eye blink analysis, while providing patients with high comfortableness in long-term ambulatory and home settings.

Keywords: Biodevices; Bioelectronics; Sensor.