Bio-inspired soft epidermal and wearable nanofiber electronics for wireless health monitoring

表皮和可穿戴电子设备具有对健康体征进行时间监测、客观分析和交流的潜力，包括脉率、血压和四肢以及肌肉骨骼运动，在远程医疗、急救、姿势监测和运动医学中具有重要应用。它们可以通过精确的压力和变形的时间/空间传感，为通过脑芯片接口控制的假肢提供触觉感觉。这项战略建议的重点是开发新型、良性、可整合和可拉伸的纳米纤维复合材料和制造技术，专门针对高冲击性表皮和可穿戴健康监测应用。该项目基于对超高规格因数(&gt；60)响应拉伸应变刺激的初步演示，观察到的是由低噪声和高重复性的金属化纳米纤维组成的可伸缩网状物；在健康监测应用中，人们经常观察到传统压电陶瓷具有与毒性、刚性和大面积可加工性相关的已知问题的敏感性。来自UBC的多学科研究人员协同团队将与三家加拿大公司以及工程和医学专家密切合作，开发具有新型无线健康监测应用潜力的生物灵感软纳米纤维皮肤传感技术。具有用于传感不同刺激的不同功能化部分的纳米纤维传感器阵列将使用具有高延伸性和一致性的可伸缩纳米纤维互连来互连。传感器阵列将连接到读出电路和数据采集系统，具有低功率无线连接和无损信号处理等关键功能，以识别相关的健康信号。与我们的支持组织和该领域的医学专家合作，将开发具有重大健康和商业利益以及高科技影响的表皮和可穿戴传感皮肤的原型，用于帕金森氏症监测和紧急护理等应用。

Epidermal and wearable electronics have potential for temporal monitoring, objective analysis and communication of health signs, including pulse rate, blood pressure and limb and musculoskeletal movements, with important applications in tele-health, emergency care, posture monitoring and sports medicine. They can provide tactile sensation to prosthetic limbs controlled with brain-chip interfaces through accurate temporal/spatial sensing of pressure and deformation. This strategic proposal focuses on the development of novel, benign, conformable and stretchable nanofiber composite materials and manufacturing technologies, specifically targeted for high impact epidermal and wearable health monitoring applications. The project is based on the preliminary demonstrations for exceptionally-high gauge-factors (>60) in response to extensional strain stimuli, observed for a scalable mesh of metallized nanofibers with low noise and high repeatability; a sensitivity often observed for conventional piezoelectric ceramics with known issues related to toxicity, rigidity and large-area processability for health monitoring applications. A synergistic team of multidisciplinary researchers from UBC will work closely with three Canadian companies and engineering and medical experts for development of the bio-inspired soft nanofiber-based sensing skin technologies with potential for novel wireless health monitoring applications. Arrays of nanofiber sensors, having different functionalized segments for sensing different stimuli, will be interconnected using stretchable nanofiber-based interconnects with high stretchability and conformability. The sensor arrays will be connected to the readout circuits and data acquisition systems, with critical features such as low-power wireless connectivity and lossless signal processing for identification of relevant health signals. Prototypes of the epidermal and wearable sensing skin with major health and commercial benefits and high technological impact will be developed for applications such as Parkinson's monitoring and emergency care, in collaboration with our supporting organizations and medical experts in the field.