Researchers in Korea developed a key technology with which it is possible to manufacture skin-attachable wearable devices that one can DIY tailor to one’s body.

SNU College of Engineering (Dean Kook-Heon Char) made an announcement on the 12th that ECE Professor Yongtaek Hong’s research team (Researcher Jaeyoung Yoon, Ph.D. researcher Junghwan Byun) developed a method to manufacture skin-attachable wearable devices with high performance through the assembly of soft modular blocks.

A wearable device that is tacked on the body to detect motions of muscles and joints or physiological signals was created by integrating on a flexible platform, electrodes without change in performance even with adjustment of the body. However, because physical structure and size are different according to race, age, and gender, there was a technical limitation where the entire system had to be designed and manufactured afresh each time, for each individual.

To answer to this limitation, the research team fabricated soft modular blocks for each function including signal processing circuits, LED display, highly sensitive sensors, and flexible electrodes, thereby developing technology with which the user can create a wearable device that he or she wants and control the size of the sensors and electrodes to fit his or her body part.

The soft circuit block was designed by printing silver electrodes through ink-jet printing on a plastic platform and integrating semiconductor chips and LED. On the flexible platform, a sensor for detecting joint bending was created to form a soft sensor block.

In addition, the team proposed a method to assemble the entire wearable device using a soft modular block with major functions such as blocks for signal processing circuit, display, bending sensor, and flexible electrodes within minutes through adhesive technology with oxygen plasma processing directly on top of the user’s body part.

With this method, the research team created a skin-attachable device that detects movement of the joints in the hands of various users with different locations and sizes of knuckles. As a result, it detected joint movement with a higher accuracy and performance compared to conventional devices.

SNU Professor Yongtaek Hong said, “We started this research to tackle the limitations surrounding conventional manufacturing technology of skin-attachable devices where the entire system must be redesigned each time according to the variation in physical ratios and sizes of individuals. An era of DIY(Do It Yourself) wearable technology, where tailored devices for each user can be manufactured, will open.”

The research results were posted online in ‘Advanced Science’, a world-known international journal, and was chosen for the cover image. The research received support from the Center for Advanced Soft Electronics and the Soft Robotics Research Center.


SNU ECE Professor Yongtaek Hong’s research team: (From left) Professor Yongtaek Hong, Researcher Jaeyoung Yoon, Ph.D. researcher Yoonsik Joo, and Ph.D. researcher Junghwan Byun

Source: http://ee.snu.ac.kr/community/news?bm=v&bbsidx=48601
Translated by: Jee Hyun Lee, English Editor of Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, jlee621@snu.ac.kr