Shulou(Shulou.com)05/31 Report--

Swollen, buzzing and buzzing wards show that monitoring a patient's health is at best an invasive and uncomfortable process, and at worst a dangerous process. Researchers at Pennsylvania State University hope to change that so that biosensors make health monitoring less troublesome, more accurate and safer.

The key is to make the sensor so flexible and flexible that it can be easily combined with complex and ever-changing human contours, says Larry Cheng, an engineering professor at Dorothy Quigler, an affiliate of the Institute of Computing and data Science. His lab has made progress in designing sensors that can do this.

If energy-efficient and scalable biosensors can be achieved on a large scale, the researchers suggest that engineers can pursue-in some cases, already pursued-a range of sensor options that can be worn on the body or even in the body. The reward will be smarter, more efficient, more personalized health care and better health decisions-without the need for huge buzzing monitoring devices.

Some of the ideas being studied by researchers in Pennsylvania and around the world include flexible textiles that can be combined with biosensors. Paper-based sensors can also be used to make smart bandages, which can monitor the state of the wound. Temporary tattoos may even include biosensors for health monitoring. For example, tattoos supported by biosensors can provide diabetics with a real-time estimate of their glucose levels.

Researchers recently released their analysis of the latest developments in flexible and scalable biosensors.

More computing power

Cheng, a member of the Pengzhou Institute of Materials, said that antennas that can transmit data are a key element of these biosensor ideas. But it can't be an ordinary antenna. The antenna in the human body will require it not only to be durable, to withstand the extreme conditions of the body, but also to be flexible, so as to adapt to the contours of various organs and tissues in the body.

Creating these retractable antennas requires complex calculations to simulate different changes that may occur in all sensor designs to determine the best design. This means that the design process itself requires a lot of computing power, he added.

"when we study these ideas, we explore many different patterns and designs, but this can create more parameters," Cheng said. " This can be a problem because it is difficult to find the correct design for all the different parameters. This is why we need more computing power-this extra computing power can help us play with different parameters and find out the effect of each parameter. Then we can figure out how to optimize them. "

The team also wants to know how mechanical and electromagnetic properties change with the shape of the device.

"We need to use computing resources to design this scalable and efficient antenna, but more importantly, we can do a lot of things with this scalable antenna, because if we want to get where these sensors send data," he said. this kind of antenna is a key element that you can't bypass. "

More motivation

The next step is to find a way to power the sensor. Zheng said the current battery may be too big and hard to power the sensor and can work on or inside the human body. His laboratory is working on a new way to power biosensors.

Although we may think we have to insert sensors into the energy, Cheng says we are actually surrounded by natural and man-made energy, which is called environmental energy.

"our current focus is also on collecting environmental energy, including Wi-Fi-3G, 4G or 5G, or even microwave sources," he said. "whether you use environmental energy or not, it will always be there. even if you fall asleep, it will be there. If we don't harvest energy, it will be wasted."

The researchers' design requires a retractable rectifier antenna that converts electromagnetic energy into direct current. 'This could be the ability to power the device, or use the rechargeable battery as a power source, 'Mr. Cheng said.

Because the device can obtain a wider range of available energy, preliminary results show that the researchers' design is 10 to 100 times better than existing models.

"if we get energy at only one frequency, we will certainly reduce the energy we can use as much as possible, but getting energy through the broadband around the device will improve efficiency," Zheng said. "

Future direction: pop-up windows and organs

Cheng said his team will continue to study biosensors in the future, but they are also studying the potential integration between biosensors and organs, which are organ-specific tissues cultivated by humans to mimic the functions of natural organs. Cheng said organs can be used for medical testing.

"Animal testing is often used in medical research, but organ testing gives us a more ethical choice," he said. "

Cheng added that designing materials that can present three-dimensional shapes is another area that the team will explore in the future. These "pop-up" designs can be inserted into the target area as a plane, but then deform into a three-dimensional shape. These technologies can be used for future applications in health and medical fields.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.