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Inexpensive method for making wearable patches developed
A research team at the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a faster, inexpensive method for making wearable patches that can continuously monitor the body's vital signs for health and performance tracking, potentially outperforming traditional monitoring tools such as cardiac event monitors.
Led by Assistant Professor Nanshu Lu, the teams manufacturing method aims to construct disposable, tattoo-like health monitoring patches for the mass production of epidermal electronics, a popular technology that Lu helped develop in 2011.
The team's repeatable, "cut-and-paste" method cuts manufacturing time from several days to only 20 minutes.
"One of the most attractive aspects of epidermal electronics is their ability to be disposable," Lu said. "If you can make them inexpensively, say for $1, then more people will be able to use them more frequently. This will open the door for a number of mobile medical applications and beyond."
The research was funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, including a Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award given to Lu.
To learn more about this research, see the UA Fairbanks news story Wearable electronic health patches may now be cheaper and easier to make. (Date image taken: unknown; date originally posted to NSF Multimedia Gallery: Nov. 30, 2015)
Credit: Cockrell School of Engineering
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