Skin-like electronics could monitor your health continuously

There are a lot of advancements each day in the field of technology ranging from daily living to the healthcare sector. Now, a team of researchers has developed new wearable electronics paired with artificial intelligence. It provides screening for health problems.

 Keywords: electronics, artificial intelligence, neuromorphic computing, gold nanowire electrodes, APS 

Flexible, wearable electronics are currently making rapid growth in everyday use. It is like having a high-tech medical center at your instant beck and call. When these are worn routinely, they could help in detecting health problems such as heart disease, cancer, or multiple sclerosis even before the human is symptomatic. The device could also be useful to do a personalized analysis of the tracked health data. This will minimize its need for wireless transmission. 

 Sihong Wang, assistant professor at UChicago PME said, "The diagnosis for the same health measurements could differ depending on the person's age, medical history, and other factors. Such a diagnosis, with health information being continuously gathered over an extended period, is very data intensive."

The device has to collect and process a vast amount of data. For this purpose, it would have to do the data collection with very low power consumption in a very tiny space. Thus, considering this issue, the researchers called upon neuromorphic computing. This AI technology is based upon operating the brain based on past data sets and learning from experience. Advantages of this AI technology include:

• Compatibility with stretchable material.
• Lower energy consumption.
• Faster speed than other types of AI.

This device consists of a neuromorphic "chip" made up of a thin film of a plastic semiconductor combined with stretchable gold nanowire electrodes. Even after stretching it twice to its normal size, the device executed and functioned the way it was planned. 

As a part of testing, the team of researchers trained the AI device to distinguish healthy electrocardiogram (ECG) signals from four different signals indicating health problems. The results showed that the device was more than 95% effective at correctly identifying the ECG signals. The plastic semiconductor in the device also underwent analysis on beamline 8-ID-E at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne. The making up of molecules that are the skin-like device material reorganize upon doubling in length was revealed by exposure to an intense X-ray beam. These results provided molecular-level information for a better understanding of the material properties.

Joe Strzalka, an Argonne physicist said, "The planned upgrade of the APS will increase the brightness of its X-ray beams by up to 500 times. We look forward to studying the device material under its regular operating conditions, interacting with charged particles, and changing electrical potential in its environment. Instead of a snapshot, we'll have more of a movie of the structural response of the material at the molecular level".

The softness and hardness of the materials in response to environmental influences can be measured through greater beamline brightness and better detectors. 

Researcher Wang said, "While still requiring further development on several fronts, our device could one day be a game changer in which everyone can get their health status in a much more effective and frequent way".