Electronic patches enable wireless health monitoring

The patches incorporate a microfluidic construction of sensors, circuits and radios, with wires folded like origami to allow them to bend and flex without being constrained. As well as everyday health tracking, the researchers say the devices could help identify diseases such as Parkinson's at the onset. "We designed this device to monitor human health 24/7, but without interfering with a person's daily activity," said Yonggang Huang, who co-led the project with Professor John Rogers. "What's important about this device is it is wirelessly powered and can send high quality data about the human body to a computer, in real time." The patch is made up of a thin elastic envelope filled with fluid. The chip components are suspended on tiny raised support points, bonding them to the underlying patch but allowing the patch to stretch and move. Rogers' group at Illinois previously demonstrated skin electronics made of tiny, ultra thin printed components. While those also offer high performance monitoring, he says the ability to incorporate readily available chip-based components provides many important, complementary capabilities, at very low cost. "Our original epidermal devices exploited specialised device geometries – super thin, structured in certain ways," Rogers noted. "But chip-scale devices, batteries, capacitors and other components must be re-formulated for these platforms. "There's a lot of value in complementing this specialised strategy with our new concepts in microfluidics and origami interconnects to enable compatibility with commercial off-the-shelf parts for accelerated development, reduced costs and expanded options in device types."