A Novel Mechanomyography (MMG) Sensor Based on Piezo-Resistance Principle and with a Pyramidic Microarray

Qize Fang; Shuchen Cao; Haotian Qin; Ruixue Yin; Wenjun Zhang; Hongbo Zhang

doi:10.3390/mi14101859

A Novel Mechanomyography (MMG) Sensor Based on Piezo-Resistance Principle and with a Pyramidic Microarray

Micromachines (Basel). 2023 Sep 28;14(10):1859. doi: 10.3390/mi14101859.

Authors

Qize Fang¹, Shuchen Cao¹, Haotian Qin¹, Ruixue Yin¹, Wenjun Zhang², Hongbo Zhang¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Mechanical and Power Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai 200237, China.
² Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK S7N 5A9, Canada.

Abstract

Flexible piezoresistive sensors built by printing nanoparticles onto soft substrates are crucial for continuous health monitoring and wearable devices. In this study, a mechanomyography (MMG) sensor was developed using a flexible piezoresistive MMG signal sensor based on a pyramidal polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microarray sprayed with carbon nanotubes (CNTs). The experiment was conducted, and the results show that the sensitivity of the sensor can reach 0.4 kPa^-1 in the measurement range of 0~1.5 kPa, and the correlation reached 96%. This has further implications for the possibility that muscle activation can be converted into mechanical movement. The integrity of the sensor in terms of its MMG signal acquisition was tested based on five subjects who were performing arm bending and arm extending movements. The results of this test were promising.

Keywords: mechanomyography; piezo-resistance; pyramidic microarray.

Grants and funding

This research was funded by “The Shanghai Beyond Limits Manufacturing project”.