Browse Topic: Wearable technology
A team of researchers has developed self-powered, wearable, triboelectric nanogenerators (TENGs) with polyvinyl alcohol (PVA)-based contact layers for monitoring cardiovascular health. TENGs help conserve mechanical energy and turn it into power.
Researchers from Skoltech and the University of Texas at Austin have presented a proof-of-concept for a wearable sensor that can track healing in sores, ulcers, and other kinds of chronic skin wounds, even without the need to remove the bandages. The paper was published in the journal ACS Sensors.
Researchers have developed a new method to pull moisture from the air and turn that water into electricity. The paper-based wearable device provides sustained high-efficiency power output through moisture capture.
Robotics researchers have already made great strides in developing sensors that can perceive changes in position, pressure, and temperature — all of which are important for technologies like wearable devices and human-robot interfaces. But a hallmark of human perception is the ability to sense multiple stimuli at once, and this is something that robotics has struggled to achieve.
For many psychiatric patients, the traditional hospital setting can feel isolating and, at times, even stigmatizing. The high costs, limited access to care, and the disruption of being away from home often make inpatient treatment feel like a last resort.
A new device aims to detect acute exacerbations of chronic conditions. The wearable monitoring device contains multiple types of sensors, enabling faster and more accurate detection of exacerbations of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and chronic conditions like asthma, heart disease and other inflammatory disorders. Eventually, the technology may help everyday people monitor their overall health and attune to early warning signs of illness.
Writing in Nature Electronics, the Brown University research team describes a novel approach for a wireless communication network that can efficiently transmit, receive, and decode data from thousands of microelectronic chips that are each no larger than a grain of salt.
This paper presents the development of a cost-effective assistive headgear designed to address the navigation challenges faced by millions of visually impaired individuals in India. Existing solutions are often prohibitively expensive, leaving a significant portion of this population underserved. To address this gap, we propose a novel human-machine interface that utilizes a synergistic combination of computer vision, stereo imaging, and haptic feedback technologies. The focus of this project lies in the creation of a practical and affordable headgear that empowers visually impaired users with real time obstacle detection and navigation capabilities. The solution leverages computer vision for environmental analysis and integrates haptic feedback for intuitive user guidance. This paper details the design intricacies of the headgear, along with the implementation methodologies employed. We present comprehensive testing results and discuss the project's potential to significantly enhance
Researchers have developed a gel polymer-based triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) that generates electrical signals from body movement to power electronics like LEDs and functions as a self-powered touch panel for user identification. The device can stretch up to 375 percent of its original size and withstand rigorous mechanical deformations, making it suitable for wearable applications. TENGs that convert mechanical energy such as body movement to electrical energy offer a solution to power wearable devices without relying on batteries.
The emergence of data-driven healthcare promises predictive and preventive care through enhanced data integration and analytics. This trend means that medical device companies must navigate challenges related to data privacy and operational efficiency while transitioning to a data-centric approach. Artificial intelligence (AI) is spearheading this shift toward hyper-personalized medicine, enabling precision treatments based on genetic profiles and predictive analytics for early disease detection. Advancements in telemedicine, AI, wearable technology, and data analytics, are reshaping how care is delivered, making it more accessible, personalized, and efficient in 2025.
Researchers in the emerging field of spatial computing have developed a prototype augmented reality headset that uses holographic imaging to overlay full-color, 3D moving images on the lenses of what would appear to be an ordinary pair of glasses. Unlike the bulky headsets of present-day augmented reality systems, the new approach delivers a visually satisfying 3D viewing experience in a compact, comfortable, and attractive form factor suitable for all-day wear.
Biofeedback training is a technology that enhances cognitive and emotional capabilities, empowering peak performance. What sets it apart is the Biocybernetics adaptation systems, which not only collect biofeedback data but also dynamically adjust your environment based on physiological signals. Imagine surroundings adapting — changing lighting, sounds, and more — in response to your biofeedback. Traditionally confined to clinical or training rooms, the real innovation is its integration into daily life. This system offers a new level of self-regulation. Users can navigate daily life venues with real-time insights into their physiological signals, providing continuous feedback and motivation for cognitive and emotional control. Efforts yield positive surroundings, fostering well-being and peak performance.
Wearable devices like smartwatches and fitness trackers interact with parts of our bodies to measure and learn from internal processes, such as our heart rate or sleep stages. Now, MIT researchers have developed wearable devices that may be able to perform similar functions for individual cells inside the body.
Wearable devices that use sensors to monitor biological signals can play an important role in health care. These devices provide valuable information that allows providers to predict, diagnose, and treat a variety of conditions while improving access to care and reducing costs.
A silicone membrane for wearable devices is more comfortable and breathable thanks to better-sized pores made with the help of citric acid crystals. The new preparation technique fabricates thin, silicone-based patches that rapidly wick water away from the skin. The technique could reduce the redness and itching caused by wearable biosensors that trap sweat beneath them. The technique was developed by bioengineer and professor Young-Ho Cho and his colleagues at KAIST and reported in the journal Scientific Reports.
A recent study combines three-dimensional embroidery techniques with machine learning to create a fabric-based sensor that can control electronic devices through touch.
A flexible and stretchable cell has been developed for wearable electronic devices that require a reliable and efficient energy source that can easily be integrated into the human body. Conductive material consisting of carbon nanotubes, crosslinked polymers, and enzymes joined by stretchable connectors, are directly printed onto the material through screenprinting.
For engineers working on soft robotics or wearable devices, keeping things light is a constant challenge: heavier materials require more energy to move around, and — in the case of wearables or prostheses — cause discomfort. Elastomers are synthetic polymers that can be manufactured with a range of mechanical properties, from stiff to stretchy, making them a popular material for such applications. But manufacturing elastomers that can be shaped into complex 3D structures that go from rigid to rubbery has been unfeasible until now.
Rice University Houston, TX
Engineers at UC Berkeley have developed a new technique for making wearable sensors that enables medical researchers to prototype and test new designs much faster and at a far lower cost than existing methods.
Nara Institute of Science and Technology Nara, Japan
Scientists at Osaka University, in cooperation with Joanneum Research (Weiz, Austria), have introduced wireless health monitoring patches that use embedded piezoelectric nanogenerators to power themselves with harvested biomechanical energy. This work may lead to new autonomous health sensors as well as battery-less wearable electronic devices.
A pair of earbuds can be turned into a tool to record the electrical activity of the brain as well as levels of lactate in the body with the addition of two flexible sensors screen-printed onto a stamp-like flexible surface.
Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) researchers have developed one of the world’s smallest, most intense, and fastest refrigeration devices — the wearable thin-film thermoelectric cooler (TFTEC) — and teamed with neuroscientists to help amputees perceive a sense of temperature with their phantom limbs.
Recently, a Korean company donated a wearable robot, designed to aid patients with limited mobility during their rehabilitation, to a hospital. The patients wear this robot to receive assistance for muscle and joint exercises while performing actions such as walking or sitting. Wearable devices including smartwatches or eyewear that people wear and attach to their skin have the potential to enhance our quality of life, offering a glimmer of hope to some people much like this robotic innovation.
Freezing is one of the most common and debilitating symptoms of Parkinson’s disease, a neurodegenerative disorder that affects more than 9 million people worldwide. When individuals with Parkinson’s disease freeze, they suddenly lose the ability to move their feet, often mid-stride, resulting in a series of staccato stutter steps that get shorter until the person stops altogether. These episodes are one of the biggest contributors to falls among people living with Parkinson’s disease.
A tactile perception system provides human-like multimodal tactile information to objects like robots and wearable devices that require tactile data in real time. The research team developed a real-time and multi-modal tactile detection system by mimicking the principle by which various types of tactile information is perceived by a variety of sensory receptors in the human skin and is transmitted to the brain in real time.
Made with a laser-modified graphene nanocomposite material, a wearable device can detect specific glucose levels in sweat for three weeks while simultaneously monitoring body temperature and pH levels.
Most people already know and appreciate the capabilities of smart phones, now imagine the possibilities offered by smart spacesuits, uniforms and exercise clothes. The future of wearable technology just got a big boost thanks to a team of University of Houston researchers who designed, developed, and delivered a successful prototype of a fully stretchable fabric-based lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery.
A patent-pending method developed by Purdue University researchers brings the public one step closer to clothes with wearable electronics that don’t affect the wearer’s comfort. The method also simplifies the manufacturing process and boosts sensing capability.
Researchers in the Lyding Group at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have discovered an efficient, sustainable method for 3D-printing single-walled carbon nanotube films, a versatile, durable material that can transform how we explore space, engineer aircraft, and wear electronic technology.
Researchers have designed a thin, digital display that can bend in half or stretch to more than twice its original length while still emitting a fluorescent pattern. The material has a wide range of applications, from wearable electronics and health sensors to foldable computer screens.
A method developed at NASA Johnson Space Center uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) interrogators for use with wearable active RFID sensor tags that can operate on ultra-low power. The technique uses a store-and-forward approach to manage the collection of data from RFID active tags even when they are not in range of an individual interrogator, as they move from the coverage area of one interrogator to the next. This allows the use of RFID active tags to transport sensor data in a highly complex environment where instantaneous access to an RFID interrogator cannot be guaranteed. Using this technique, an RFID active tag battery operational lifetime can be extended.
Engineers at the University of California San Diego developed a soft and stretchy ultrasound patch that can be worn on the skin to monitor blood flow through major arteries and veins deep inside a person’s body.
The Defense Department is looking to expand the use of its wearable technology to other infectious disease detection in service members, which leaders say will aid in readiness, says Jeff Schneider, program manager for the Rapid Assessment of Threat Exposure project, also known as the RATE program. DOD is extending the project, initially started with the Defense Threat Reduction Agency in 2020, to new user groups after leading a successful prototype during COVID-19, he says.
Trends in wearable technology follow those of the broader biomedical and electronics industries — devices are getting smaller, smarter, and easier to use. Specifically, wearables in healthcare have moved toward solutions that reduce the device profile, provide more integration with smartphone apps, and most importantly enable patients to receive their treatments at home, outside of a doctor’s visit. These wearable devices range from on-body drug-delivery systems for cancer treatment to electrical nerve stimulation patches or simply sensors to monitor vitals. All treatments increase patient autonomy and are rapidly increasing in popularity.
New research out of Washington State University shows the glittering, serpentine structures that power wearable electronics can be created with the same technology used to print concert t-shirts.
Researchers at Drexel University are one step closer to making wearable textile technology a reality. Recently published in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Journal of Material’s Chemistry A, materials scientists from Drexel’s College of Engineering, in partnership with a team at Accenture Labs, have reported a new design of a flexible wearable supercapacitor patch. It uses MXene, a material discovered at Drexel University in 2011, to create a textile-based supercapacitor that can charge in minutes and power an Arduino microcontroller temperature sensor and radio communication of data for almost two hours.
Flexible, wearable electronics could be used for precision medical sensors attached to the skin, designed to perform health monitoring and diagnosis. Such a skin-like device is being developed in a project between the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME). Leading the project is Sihong Wang, Assistant Professor in UChicago PME with a joint appointment in Argonne’s Nanoscience and Technology division.
A highly sensitive wearable sensor for cardiorespiratory monitoring could potentially be worn continuously by cardiac patients or others who require constant monitoring.
A new string-like implant can monitor fluctuations in brain chemicals, like a fitness tracker for the brain.
Engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a thin, flexible, stretchy sweat sensor that can show the level of glucose, lactate, sodium, or pH of your sweat — at the press of a finger. It is the first standalone wearable device that allows the sensor to operate independently — sans any wired or wireless connection to external devices — to directly visualize the measurement’s results.
Researchers in Japan have developed the first wearable devices to precisely monitor jaundice, a yellowing of the skin caused by elevated bilirubin levels in the blood that can cause severe medical conditions in newborns. Jaundice can be treated easily by irradiating the infant with blue light that breaks bilirubin down to be excreted through urine. The treatment itself, however, can disrupt bonding time, cause dehydration, and increase the risks of allergic diseases. Neonatal jaundice is one of the leading causes of death and brain damage in infants in low- and middle-income countries.
Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have engineered a biofilm that harvests the energy in evaporation and converts it to electricity. This biofilm has the potential to revolutionize the world of wearable electronics, powering everything from personal medical sensors to personal electronics.
With the spread of new trends such as autonomous driving and vehicle subscription service, drivers may pay less attention to the maintenance of the vehicle. Brake pads being safety critical components, the wear condition of all service brakes is required by regulation to be indicated by either acoustic of optical devices or a means of visually checking the degree of brake lining wear [1]. Current application of the wear indicator in the market uses either sound generating metal strip or wire harness based pad wear sensor. The former is not effective in generating clear alarm to the driver, and the latter is not cost effective, and there is a need for more effective and low cost solution. In this paper, a pad wear monitoring system using MOC(Motor On Caliper) EPB(Electric Parking Brake) ECU is proposed. An MOC EPB is equipped with a motor, geartrain and an ECU. The motor current when applying the parking brake is influenced by the mechanical load at the brake pad side of the system. So
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