Inkjet Printed, Passive, and Contactless Epidermal Pressure Sensor

(a) The implemented printed pressure sensor. (b) Measurement of the pressure of compression garments using our proposed sensor. (c) Resonant frequency shift induced by the change in pressure.

In this project, we propose a passive and contactless epidermal pressure sensor patch printed on a paper substrate with silver nano-particle ink. This disposable patch can be used to measure the pressure between the clothes and the human body. Different from the conventional pressure sensors, the pressure can be measured wirelessly without disturbing the motion of the users. The sensor circuit pattern is printed by a conductive inkjet printer and the sensor’s pressure value is detected by a reader coil through the change of the capacitance of an LC resonant circuit. We propose a sensor design method that minimizes the effect of the human body. We demonstrate our sensor patch by measuring the pressure exerted by compression garments whose pressure distribution is important for the wearer’s health.

衣服や靴などの適切なフィット感の提示や筋肉疲労の軽減の効果があるとされるcompression garmentsの研究用途を目的とし，衣服を着た時に体表面に加わる圧力である着圧を，無電源・非接触で服の上から読み取ることのできる圧力センサの提案・設計・実装を行った．センサは導電性インクを用いて印刷により形成され，共振回路のキャパシタンス成分の変化として圧力の変化を非接触コイルで読み取る．人体に貼り付けても圧力計測を行えるセンサ設計手法を提案し，衣服において最も着圧が重要となるcompression garmentsの着圧を計測することで実用性を確認した．

Publications

  1. T. Hashizume, T. Sasatani, K. Narumi, Y. Narusue, Y. Kawahara, and T. Asami, “Passive and Contactless Epidermal Pressure Sensor Printed with Silver Nano-particle Ink,” Proceedings of ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing (UbiComp) 2016, pp. 190-195, Heidelberg, Germany, Sept. 2016.

  2. 橋爪崇弘，笹谷拓也，成末義哲，川原圭博，浅見徹，”銀ナノインクを用いた非接触読み取り可能なパッシブ型静電容量式圧力センサと着圧測定への応用，” マルチメディア，分散，協調とモバイル (DICOMO2017) シンポジウム，4G-1，pp.840-845, July 2016.

  3. 橋爪崇弘，笹谷拓也，成末義哲，川原圭博，浅見徹，”銀ナノインクを用いたパッシブ型圧力センサの人体貼付用途における設計手法，” 電子情報通信学会 総合大会，B-18-17，March 2016．