Epidermal Electronics

We aim to create soft health monitoring devices together with advanced computational techniques to capture and decode biosignals comfortably and accurately.

Mechano-acoustic sensing

A human interacts with the environment and others and generates mechano-acoustic (MA) signals that contain critical information about bioactivities. Most of the signals attenuate at the skin-air interface but epidermal electronics create a path to capture them. We have invented a wearable mechano-acoustic (MA) sensing technique, which is a wireless, soft, skin-mounted electronic system that incorporates MEMS accelerometers with capabilities of recording body kinematics, along with multimodal MA signatures of underlying body processes, similar to those captured with stethoscope. Our work focuses on engineering the conformal form of mechano-acoustic detection at anatomy positions of interest, especially those hard for conventional wearable devices with rigid, planar form factors to couple to. The aim is to capture a multitude of human-body mechanics to decode human actions or status in high dimensions. We also work on frequency-domain analysis and machine learning approaches to interpret the networked, high-density MA data streams for advanced monitoring modalities, such as in-vivo, constitutive characterizations of tissues and organs. The goal is to investigate broad classes of biomechanical processes and their inference of the underlying functional properties of the mechanical body. 

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Mechano-acoustic

X. Ni, W. Ouyang, H. Jeong, J.T. Kim, A. Tzaveils, A. Mirzazadeh, C. Wu, J.Y. Lee, M. Keller, C.K. Mummidisetty, M. Patel, N. Shawen, J. Huang, H. Chen, S. Ravi, J.K. Chang, K. Lee, Y. Wu, F. Lie, Y.J. Kang, J.U. Kim, L.P. Chamorro, A.R. Banks, A. Bharat, A. Jayaraman, S. Xu*, J.A. Rogers*, "Automated, multiparametric monitoring of respiratory biomarkers and vital signs in clinical and home settings for COVID-19 patients", Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences  (2021) 

K. Lee, X. Ni, J.Y. Lee, H. Arafa, D. Pe, S. Xu, R. Avila, M. Irie, J.H. Lee, R.L. Easterlin, D.H. Kim, H.U. Chung, O.O. Olabisi, S. Getaneh, E. Chung, M. Hill, J. Bell, H.K. Jang, C. Liu, J.B. Park, J. Kim, S.B. Kim, S. Mehta, M. Pharr, A. Tzavelis, J.T. Reeder, I. Huang, Y. Deng, Z. Xie*, C.R. Davies*, Y. Huang*, and J.A. Rogers*, "Mechano-acoustic sensing of physiological processes and body motions using soft, wireless devices interfaced to the skin at the suprasternal notch", Nature Biomedical Engineering 4, 148–158 (2020)