A Wearable Capacitive Sensor Based on Ring/Disk-Shaped Electrode and Porous Dielectric for Noncontact Healthcare Monitoring.

ABSTRACT: Wearable sensors are gradually enabling decentralized healthcare systems. However, these sensors need to be closely attached to skin, which is unsuitable for long-term dynamic health monitoring of the patients, such as infants or persons with burn injuries. Here, a wearable capacitive sensor based on the capacitively coupled effect for healthcare monitoring in noncontact mode is reported. It consists of a ring-shaped top electrode, a disk-shaped bottom electrode, and a porous dielectric layer with low permittivity. This unique design enhanced the capacitively coupled effect of the sensor, which enables a high noncontact detectivity of capacitance change. When an object approaches the sensor, its capacitance change (?C/C _i = -38.7%) is 3-5 times higher than that of previously reported sensors. Meanwhile, the sensor is insensitive to the stretching strain and pressure (?C/C _i < 5%) due to the unique ring-shaped electrode and the incompressible closed cells of the porous dielectric material, respectively. Finally, various human physiological signals (pulse and respiratory) are recorded in noncontact mode, where a person wears loose and soft clothes implanted with the sensor. Thus, it is promising to build smart healthcare clothes based on it to develop wearable decentralized healthcare systems.

SUBMITTER: Zheng YN 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7175022 | biostudies-literature | 2020 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature