Wearable electronics combined with AI might one day process massive amounts of health information in real time.
(Image provided by UChicago)
New wearable electronics paired with artificial intelligence could transform screening for health problems.
Flexible, wearable electronics are making their way into everyday use, and their full potential is still to be realized. Soon, this technology could be used for precision medical sensors attached to the skin, designed to perform health monitoring and diagnosis. It would be like having a high-tech medical center at your instant beck and call.
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.
Worn routinely, future wearable electronics could potentially detect possible emerging health problems — such as heart disease, cancer or multiple sclerosis — even before obvious symptoms appear. The device could also do a personalized analysis of the tracked health data while minimizing the need for its wireless transmission. ?“The diagnosis for the same health measurements could differ depending on the person’s age, medical history and other factors,” Wang said. ?“Such a diagnosis, with health information being continuously gathered over an extended period, is very data intensive.”
“While still requiring further development on several fronts, our device could be a game changer in which everyone can get their health status in a much more effective and frequent way.” — Sihong Wang, assistant professor in UChicago’s PME with joint appointment in Argonne’s Nanoscience and Technology division
Such a device would need to collect and process a vast amount of data, well above what even the best smartwatches can do today. And it would have to do this data crunching with very low power consumption in a very tiny space.
To address that need, the team called upon neuromorphic computing. This AI technology mimics operation of the brain by training on past data sets and learning from experience. Its advantages include compatibility with stretchable material, lower energy consumption and faster speed than other types of AI.
The other major challenge the team faced was integrating the electronics into a skin-like stretchable material. The key material in any electronic device is a semiconductor. In current rigid electronics used in cell phones and computers, this is normally a solid silicon chip. Stretchable electronics require that the semiconductor be a highly flexible material that is still able to conduct electricity.
The team’s skin-like neuromorphic ?“chip” consists of a thin film of a plastic semiconductor combined with stretchable gold nanowire electrodes. Even when stretched to twice its normal size, their device functioned as planned without formation of any cracks.
Researchers from the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory and UChicago’s PME are developing skin-like electronics paired with AI for health monitoring and diagnosis. Such new wearable electronics paired with AI could transform screening for health problems. (Image by Wang Research Group.)
As one test, the team built an AI device and trained it to distinguish healthy electrocardiogram (ECG) signals from four different signals indicating health problems. After training, the device was more than 95% effective at correctly identifying the ECG signals.
The plastic semiconductor also underwent analysis on beamline 8-ID-E at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science user facility at Argonne. Exposure to an intense X-ray beam revealed how the molecules that make up the skin-like device material reorganize upon doubling in length. These results provided molecular level information to better understand the material properties.
“The planned upgrade of the APS will increase the brightness of its X-ray beams by up to 500 times,” said Joe Strzalka, an Argonne physicist. ?“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 greater beamline brightness and better detectors will make it possible to measure how soft or hard the material becomes in response to environmental influences.
“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,” added Wang.
This research was published in Matter in a paper titled ?“Intrinsically stretchable neuromorphic devices for on-body processing of health data with artificial intelligence.”
Original Article: Skin-like electronics could monitor your health continuously
More from: Argonne National Laboratory | Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago
The Latest Updates from Bing News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Stretchable neuromorphic devices
- Sandia Pushes The Neuromorphic AI Envelope With Hala Point “Supercomputer”
Not many devices in the datacenter have been etched with the Intel 4 process, which is the chip maker’s spin on 7 nanometer extreme ultraviolet immersion ...
- Rubber-like stretchable energy storage device fabricated with laser precision
Researchers have achieved a significant breakthrough in developing a small-scale energy storage device capable of stretching, twisting, folding, and wrinkling. Their study is published in the journal ...
- Top 6 Best Neck Traction Device in 2024
The device is easy to use and adjust, and it provides a comfortable stretch that can help alleviate neck pain and stiffness. One thing we liked about the device is its adjustable design ...
- World’s largest neuromorphic computer by Intel works like human brain
Intel says its new brain-like computer is significantly fast, energy-efficient and it has the potential to revolutionize future AI tools.
- Intel's Hala Point, the world's largest neuromorphic computer, has 1.15 billion neurons
The Hala Point system's 1,152 Loihi 2 chips enable a total of 1.15 billion artificial neurons, Intel said, "and 128 billion synapses distributed over 140,544 neuromorphic processing cores." That is an ...
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Skin-like electronics
- Northwood Park hosts a major disc golf tournament
The Champions Cup is one of the four major tournaments in professional disc golf, and it’s being hosted in central Illinois. Northwood Park in Morton is the ...
- Have a unique phobia? Fear not! You’re not alone
Do you have a unique phobia? Those with autophobia, the fear of being alone, need not worry in being alone in their fears.
- Inside the class action against Philips Electronics over recall of sleep therapy machine
More than 76,000 Philips Electronics respiratory care machines – to help with ... “The last four months of using the machine, I really didn’t feel like myself at all,” Mr Martini said. “My face began ...
- What is the ‘coastal cowgirl’ trend? Stylists explain the latest Western aesthetic
Think belts as standout decorative pieces, pairing classic staples like denim or cotton shirts with cowboy hats and boots for a laid-back yet stylish vibe, and flowy fabrics or intricate details (like ...
- How to wash dog beds – 6 steps that go beyond the lint roller
Professional cleaners and pet experts explain how to wash dog beds properly to keep your home and your pets healthy and minimize bad odors ...