Wearable Sweat Sensors—Towards Big Data for Human Health
ABSTRACT
Fashionable Augmented Reality Smartglasses require ultra-compact high-performance display solutions of high brightness and extremely low power consumption. Laser Beam Scanning (LBS) offers some advantages over other microdisplay technologies, particularly with respect to brightness, contrast, size, weight, and power consumption. A biaxial piezoelectric MEMS scanning mirror that is operated in resonance in a miniature vacuum environment consequently minimizes power consumption and also allows reducing projector size to a minimum. MEMS mirror-based laser scanning is not only the key to stylish AR smartglasses it also enables building extremely compact depth-sensing cameras that are the basis for enabling interactivity –not only in the Metaverse.
Wearable sensor technologies play a significant role in realizing personalized medicine through continuously monitoring an individual’s health state. To this end, human sweat is an excellent candidate for non-invasive monitoring as it contains physiologically rich information. In this talk, I will present our recent advancements in a fully-integrated perspiration analysis system that can simultaneously measure sweat rate, metabolites, electrolytes, drugs, and heavy metals, as well as the skin temperature to calibrate the sensor's response. Our work bridges the technological gap in wearable biosensors by merging plastic-based sensors that interface with the skin, and silicon integrated circuits consolidated on a flexible circuit board for complex signal processing. This wearable system is used to measure the detailed sweat profile of subjects at rest and engaged in prolonged physical activities and infer real-time assessment of the physiological state of the subjects. Case studies on the correlation of sweat analytes with those of blood and various physiological conditions will be presented, including for applications in dehydration studies, diabetes monitoring, drug metabolism rate studies, and detection and monitoring of cystic fibrosis. Finally, a general roadmap for the technology will be presented, with a focus on opportunities and challenges.
BIOGRAPHY
Ali Javey received a PhD degree in chemistry from Stanford University in 2005 and was a Junior Fellow of the Harvard Society of Fellows from 2005 to 2006. He then joined the faculty of the University of California at Berkeley where he is currently a professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. He is also a senior faculty scientist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory where he serves as the program leader of Electronic Materials (E-Mat). He is a co-director of Berkeley Sensor and Actuator Center (BSAC). He is an associate editor of ACS Nano.
Javey's research interests encompass the fields of chemistry, materials science, and electrical engineering. His work focuses on the integration of nanoscale electronic materials for various technological applications, including low power electronics, flexible circuits and sensors, and energy generation and harvesting. He is the recipient of MRS Outstanding Young Investigator Award (2015), Nano Letters Young Investigator Lectureship (2014); UC Berkeley Electrical Engineering Outstanding Teaching Award (2012); APEC Science Prize for Innovation, Research and Education (2011); Netexplorateur of the Year Award (2011); IEEE Nanotechnology Early Career Award (2010); Alfred P. Sloan Fellow (2010); Mohr Davidow Ventures Innovators Award (2010); National Academy of Sciences Award for Initiatives in Research (2009); Technology Review TR35 (2009); NSF Early CAREER Award (2008); U.S. Frontiers of Engineering by National Academy of Engineering (2008); and Peter Verhofstadt Fellowship from the Semiconductor Research Corporation (2003).