TY - JOUR
T1 - Fully Integrated Wireless Elastic Wearable Systems for Health Monitoring Applications
AU - Behfar, Mohammad H.
AU - Di Vito, Donato
AU - Korhonen, Arttu
AU - Nguyen, Dung
AU - Amin, Belal Mostafa
AU - Kurkela, Timo
AU - Tuomikoski, Markus
AU - Mantysalo, Matti
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received September 18, 2020; revised April 30, 2021; accepted May 11, 2021. Date of publication May 21, 2021; date of current version June 16, 2021. This work was supported in part by the Business Finland under Grant 3087/31/2018 and Grant 2947/31/2018 and in part by the Academy of Finland [utilized the Printed Intelligent Infrastructure (PII-FIRI)] under Grant 320019. The work of Matti Mäntysalo was supported by the Academy of Finland under Grant 288945 and Grant 292477. Recommended for publication by Associate Editor P. Xavier upon evaluation of reviewers’ comments. (Corresponding author: Mohammad H. Behfar.) Mohammad H. Behfar, Arttu Korhonen, Dung Nguyen, Timo Kurkela, and Markus Tuomikoski are with VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, 90570 Oulu, Finland (e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2011-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2021
Y1 - 2021
N2 - Advances in flexible and hybrid electronics promote increasing demands for wearable sensors in personal health, monitoring, and diagnostic medical gadgets. Conventional wearable devices rely on electronics based on rigid substrates and components with limited conformity to user skin. In this work, we report a fully integrated, stretchable wireless electrocardiography (ECG) system developed on highly elastic, ultra-thin ( 100~\mu \text{m} ) thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) film without any rigid or flexible interposer. Moreover, the circuit layout printing and component assembly are carried out through sheet-to-sheet (S2S) process directly on TPU film. This study utilizes both experimental reliability tests coupled with data acquired from finite element modeling (FEM) to assess performance and failure of the device under tensile loading. In such a complex system assembly, FEM simulation not only provides insights on the overall electromechanical performance of the device, but also facilitates localization of the failure points which are difficult to access for visual inspection. The performance of the device is also evaluated through controlled uniaxial cyclic strain at 5% and 10% elongation. The durability test shows that the assembled device can stay functional over hundreds of deformation cycles, suggesting that direct assembly of conventional components on stretchable substrate represents a promising approach for fully integrated stretchable devices, which is a step toward scalable manufacture of wearable stretchable electronics through high-throughput manufacturing processes.
AB - Advances in flexible and hybrid electronics promote increasing demands for wearable sensors in personal health, monitoring, and diagnostic medical gadgets. Conventional wearable devices rely on electronics based on rigid substrates and components with limited conformity to user skin. In this work, we report a fully integrated, stretchable wireless electrocardiography (ECG) system developed on highly elastic, ultra-thin ( 100~\mu \text{m} ) thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) film without any rigid or flexible interposer. Moreover, the circuit layout printing and component assembly are carried out through sheet-to-sheet (S2S) process directly on TPU film. This study utilizes both experimental reliability tests coupled with data acquired from finite element modeling (FEM) to assess performance and failure of the device under tensile loading. In such a complex system assembly, FEM simulation not only provides insights on the overall electromechanical performance of the device, but also facilitates localization of the failure points which are difficult to access for visual inspection. The performance of the device is also evaluated through controlled uniaxial cyclic strain at 5% and 10% elongation. The durability test shows that the assembled device can stay functional over hundreds of deformation cycles, suggesting that direct assembly of conventional components on stretchable substrate represents a promising approach for fully integrated stretchable devices, which is a step toward scalable manufacture of wearable stretchable electronics through high-throughput manufacturing processes.
KW - Electrocardiography
KW - Elongation
KW - Performance evaluation
KW - printed stretchable electronics
KW - Sensors
KW - Skin
KW - skin patch
KW - Strain
KW - Substrates
KW - Wearable sensors
KW - wireless sensors
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85107199638&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TCPMT.2021.3082647
DO - 10.1109/TCPMT.2021.3082647
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85107199638
SN - 2156-3950
VL - 11
SP - 1022
EP - 1027
JO - IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology
JF - IEEE Transactions on Components, Packaging and Manufacturing Technology
IS - 6
ER -