MultiSense - Devising and Manufacturing mm-Wave High Data Rate Low Latency On-Skin Technologies

这个多学科项目将利用一个建立在英国的团队的跟踪记录，包括射频和生物传感工程师，电池和材料科学家，以及CPI，英国国家印刷电子弹射器。以增材制造为中心，以扩大规模为目标，我们将把新生的基于皮肤的无线传感技术转变为即将推出的使用免许可24 GHz信道的通信系统所提供的高数据速率容量。这将使新的生物数据流能够用于远程诊断，监测和护理，以及用于前额/耳朵/头发自由区域的超低影响无线EEG。它将使得在多个人身上使用多个传感标签同时监测生理参数成为可能，例如加速度计（用于活动跟踪），光电脉波描记术（用于心率监测）和汗液（用于代谢物监测）。在高数据速率下，这代表了现有技术的一个阶跃变化。在高度柔性、潜在可拉伸的基底上制造的皮肤标签采用临时纹身的形状因子，并且非常持久，对于社会可接受性而言是离散的，并且可以遵循皮肤的微轮廓以提供大的接触表面积，从而感测信噪比。为了实现我们的目标，我们将推进无线毫米波设备、皮肤电子设备、低功耗生物传感和增材制造。此外，通过CPI，我们将为这些毫米波器件开发放大工艺。 通过现有的投资，申请人团队正在将英国定位为大规模生产皮肤传感器标签。EP/P027075/1创建了一种用于柔性基板上的传感器的基于喷墨印刷的制造工艺，其避免了洁净室，使用基于石墨烯的油墨制剂用于生物降解性，并且可以按比例放大大批量卷对卷丝网印刷。EP/R 02331 X/1增加了打印集成到平台中的TiO 2/LiFePO 4电池的能力，消除了关键的集成瓶颈。这项新的“MultiSense”提案旨在建立在这两个项目创建的制造基础上，将其扩展到克服皮肤标签上电流的关键传感限制：它们一次只能监测一个人的一个参数，并且数据速率相对较低。这些项目还限于生产第一原理非弹性、低容量集成电池和UHF频率（868 MHz）RF设备，其需要与用于湿法蚀刻的常规掩模（通常为200 μ m）类似的印刷分辨率。此外，我们的UHF RFID经验表明，传输延迟为6 ms，可靠的数据速率上限仅为400 bps（对应于加速度计等模态的采样率仅为30 Hz）。在MultiSense中，我们建议通过从RFID移动到24 GHz ISM（工业，科学医疗）频带传输来克服这些限制，其中非常可观的不拥塞带宽可用，提供比UHF高几个数量级的比特率。此外，较小的波长将增加集成弹性基板电池上的天线封装，需要50 um的打印分辨率。新的电池将是固态的，聚合物基的，带有弹性集电器。我们还将研究毫米波信号表面在皮肤上的引导，作为允许贴片间通信的机制。由于可以捕获传感器位置的微小变化/错位，并可能在软件中进行校正，因此将提高传感鲁棒性。这将影响诊断EEG测量，其中当单个电极断开时，当前整个数据集（来自有线电极）可能会被放弃。为了能够使用新的干电极设计测量贴片之间基于皮肤的传输，我们将与千叶大学的国际研究访问教授Koichi Ito合作，他是人体模型设计专家。

This multidisciplinary project will exploit an established UK based team's track record comprising RF & bio-sensing engineers, battery & materials scientists, and CPI, the UK National Catapult for Printed Electronics. Centred around Additive Manufacture and aimed towards scale-up, we will transform nascent wireless skin-based sensing to the high data rate capacity offered by upcoming communications systems using license-free 24 GHz channels. This will enable new streaming of biodata for remote diagnostics, monitoring and care, as well as ultra-low impact wireless EEG for forehead/ear/hair free regions. It will make possible the use of multiple sensing tags on multiple people simultaneously monitoring physiological parameters such as accelerometery (for activity tracking), photoplesmography (for heart rate monitoring), and sweat (for metabolite monitoring). At high data rate, this represents a step change over available technologies. Manufactured on highly flexible, potentially stretchable, substrates the skin tags take the form factor of temporary tattoos and are highly long lasting, discrete for social acceptability, and can follow the micro-contours of the skin to give a large contact surface area and consequently sensing signal-to-noise ratio. To achieve our aims, we will advance wireless mmWave devices, on-skin electronics, low-power bio-sensing, and additive manufacture. Additionally, through CPI, we will develop scale-up processes for these mmWave devices. Through existing investments the applicant team is positioning the UK for the large scale manufacture of on-skin sensor tags. EP/P027075/1 is creating an inkjet printing based manufacturing process for sensors on flexible substrates which avoids cleanrooms, uses graphene based ink formulations for biodegradability, and can be scaled up large run roll-to-roll screen printing. EP/R02331X/1 added the capability to print TiO2/LiFePO4 batteries integrated into the platform, removing a key integration bottleneck. This new proposal 'MultiSense' seeks to build upon the manufacturing base created by these two projects, extending it to overcome the key sensing limitation of current on skin tags: that they can only monitor one parameter from one person at a time, and at a comparatively low data rate. These projects are further limited to producing first principle non-elastic, low capacity integrated batteries and UHF frequency (868 MHz) RF devices which require print resolutions similar to conventional masks for wet etching (typically 200 um). Further, our experience of UHF RFID reveals transmission delays of 6 ms, and a reliable data rate upper limit of only 400 bps (corresponding to a sample rate of just 30 Hz for a modality such as accelerometry). In MultiSense, we propose to overcome these limitations by moving from RFID to 24 GHz ISM (Industrial, Scientific Medical) band transmission, where very substantial uncongested bandwidth is available, offering orders of magnitude higher bit rates than UHF. In addition, the smaller wavelengths will increase antenna miniaturisation on integrated elastic substrate batteries, requiring print resolutions of 50 um. The new batteries will be solid state and polymer based with elastic current collectors. We will also investigate the mmWave signal surface guiding over the skin as a mechanism to allow for inter-patch communications. Sensing robustness will be improved as minor variations/misplacements in the sensor positions could be captured, and potentially corrected for in software. This will impact on diagnostic EEG measurements where currently entire datasets (from cabled electrodes) might be abandoned when individual electrodes disconnect. To enable the measurement of skin-based transmission between patches with new dry electrode designs, we will work with International Research Visitor Professor Koichi Ito of Chiba university, an expert in human phantom design.