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New Sensors and Flexible 3D-Printed Devices for Human Activity Monitoring: From Materials to Electronic Conditioning

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 December 2021) | Viewed by 6917

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Departament of Innovation Engineering, University of Salento, 73100 Lecce, Italy
Interests: design and testing of IoT-based electronic systems; smart remote control of facilities; electronic systems for automation and automotive; energy harvesting systems for sensors nodes; wearable devices for health monitoring; new materials and advanced sensors
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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, wearable sensing devices have increasingly spread in people’s lives, enabling real-time monitoring of users’ conditions relatively to the health status, physical activity, and much more; some of the peculiarities of such devices are their flexibility, very low cost and power dissipation, wireless connectivity, reduced invasiveness, manufacturing simplicity, and multifunctionality. Specifically, the development of wearable or implantable human sensors for medical diagnostics and sport activity control covers several research fields, such as body-sensors for the detection of different biomarkers such as glucose, lactic acid, pH or cholesterol, as well as for monitoring biophysical parameters such as heart rate, temperature, breath rate, walk or body posture monitoring, fall detection, muscle contractions, etc. Further, 3D printing technology can be employed for the development of new wearable and flexible sensors, taking advantage of its simplicity, low cost, rapidity, and ability to reproduce complex geometries. These 3D-printed flexible electronic devices can be applied widely in the fields of personal wearable devices, prosthetic organs for the disabled, and human–computer interfaces. All these sensors need a suitable electronic conditioning section for impedance matching and adapting the characteristics of the signal provided by the sensor to the designed acquisition system. Finally, in this field, research activity concerns the development of new materials and sensing methodologies for the design of new wearable or implantable sensors of a new generation as well as the use of new energy harvesting techniques to make the devices energetically autonomous.

Summing up, this Special Issue “New Sensors and Flexible 3D-Printed Devices for Human Activity Monitoring: From Materials to Electronic Conditioning” aims to bring together innovative developments and synergies in the following topics (without being limited to them):

  • Wearable sensors for biophysical parameters;
  • SoC for health monitoring applications;
  • Biomarkers for biofluid detection (sweat/saliva/interstitial fluids/tears);
  • Electrochemical bio-sensors;
  • Less battery-implantable devices;
  • 3D printing technology applied to wearable sensor development;
  • Flexible sensors and actuators for wearable devices;
  • Soft electronics for the signal conditioning applied to wearable sensors;
  • Smart prostheses and artificial organs;
  • Charging methods for implanted devices;
  • Energy-harvesting techniques for wearable/implantable body devices;
  • Low-power electronic solutions for signals acquisition/processing from wearable sensors;
  • New materials and sensing methodologies;
  • Software development for wearable sensors and body sensor networks.

Prof. Dr. Paolo Visconti
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Wearable human sensors
  • Implantable devices Health monitoring
  • 3D printing technology
  • Energy harvesting
  • Smart prostheses
  • New materials for biosensors
  • Signals’ electronic conditioning

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 3229 KiB  
Communication
The Driving Waveform Design Method of Power-Law Fluid Piezoelectric Printing Based on Iterative Learning Control
by Ju Peng, Jin Huang, Jianjun Wang, Fanbo Meng, Hongxiao Gong and Bu Ping
Sensors 2022, 22(3), 935; https://doi.org/10.3390/s22030935 - 25 Jan 2022
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 2412
Abstract
In some applications of piezoelectric three-dimensional inkjet printing, the materials used are power-law fluids as they are shear thinning. Their time-varying viscosities affect the droplet formation, which is determined by the volume flow rate at the nozzle outlet. To obtain a fine printing [...] Read more.
In some applications of piezoelectric three-dimensional inkjet printing, the materials used are power-law fluids as they are shear thinning. Their time-varying viscosities affect the droplet formation, which is determined by the volume flow rate at the nozzle outlet. To obtain a fine printing effect, it is necessary to present a driving waveform design method that considers the shear-thinning viscosities of materials to control the volume flow rate at the nozzle outlet, which lays the foundation for the single and stable droplet generation during the printing process. In this research, we established the relationship between the driving waveform and the volume flow rate at the nozzle outlet by modifying a model that describes the inkjet mechanism of power-law fluid. The modified model was used to present a driving waveform design method based on iterative learning control. The iterative learning law of the method was designed based on the gradient descent algorithm and demonstrated its convergence. The driving waveform design method was verified to be practical and feasible by implementing drop generation experiments. Full article
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13 pages, 3325 KiB  
Article
Thermal Characterization of New 3D-Printed Bendable, Coplanar Capacitive Sensors
by Mattia Alessandro Ragolia, Anna M. L. Lanzolla, Gianluca Percoco, Gianni Stano and Attilio Di Nisio
Sensors 2021, 21(19), 6324; https://doi.org/10.3390/s21196324 - 22 Sep 2021
Cited by 20 | Viewed by 3126
Abstract
In this paper a new low-cost stretchable coplanar capacitive sensor for liquid level sensing is presented. It has been 3D-printed by employing commercial thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and conductive materials and using a fused filament fabrication (FFF) process for monolithic fabrication. The sensor presents [...] Read more.
In this paper a new low-cost stretchable coplanar capacitive sensor for liquid level sensing is presented. It has been 3D-printed by employing commercial thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) and conductive materials and using a fused filament fabrication (FFF) process for monolithic fabrication. The sensor presents high linearity and good repeatability when measuring sunflower oil level. Experiments were performed to analyse the behaviour of the developed sensor when applying bending stimuli, in order to verify its flexibility, and a thermal characterization was performed in the temperature range from 10 °C to 40 °C to evaluate its effect on sunflower oil level measurement. The experimental results showed negligible sensitivity of the sensor to bending stimuli, whereas the thermal characterization produced a model describing the relationship between capacitance, temperature, and oil level, allowing temperature compensation in oil level measurement. The different temperature cycles allowed to quantify the main sources of uncertainty, and their effect on level measurement was evaluated. Full article
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