The availability of sensors that can take the shape of their imposed working environment has existed for quite some time with the earliest being for aerospace applications. Most recently, there has been an exponential growth in the field of flexible, printed and organic large-area electronics and sensors driven by applications including wearables, e-Health and the Internet of Things (IoT). These new electronics and sensors are fabricated on flexible plastic substrates or are printed/woven into fabrics, which offer advantages such as mechanical flexibility, shape conformity, light weight and low profile. The creation of these “non-classical” platforms is enabled by low cost high-speed manufacturing of devices over large areas using various technologies including Roll-to-Roll production.
The extensive list of 12 speakers, who represent the international “who’s who” in this topical area, will present several of the more interesting printed/flexible/stretchable and functional fabric sensor technologies and their applications currently under development and in production in the commercial sector as well those under development in the leading research universities and research labs around the world. In addition to these sensors, we will address the challenges of their integration with other functional element of basic Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable applications. We will also address the manufacturing issues to create these heterogeneous and hybrid solutions from both a batch mode and continuous process. Finally, barriers to the successful commercialization of these sensors and recommended strategies for market success will be presented.
In recent years, there has been an exponential growth in the field of flexible, printed and organic large-area electronics and sensors. These new printed electronics and sensors are fabricated on flexible plastic substrates as well as on/in fabrics, which offer advantages such as mechanical flexibility, shape conformity, light weight and low profile. The judicious use of these substrates/carrier platforms enables low-cost and high-speed manufacturing of devices over large areas using printing technologies in a Roll-to-Roll production line. Targeted applications include wearables, environmental monitoring and eHealth.
Recently, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) awarded $75M to FlexTech Alliance to establish and manage a San Jose-based facility to create a Manufacturing Innovation Institute for Flexible Hybrid Electronics (FHE MII). Additionally, the recent award of $75M, also by the US DoD, with $250M in matching grants from regional governments, industry and academia for the creation of a research and development consortia, Advanced Functional Fabrics of America (AFFOA), headed by MIT for the development of sensors and other electronic functions has validated the potential of this technology to create “smart fabrics” for consumer and military wearable applications.
We are surrounded with applications requiring the detection of local magnetic fields using ultrasmall, flexible and highly sensitive sensors. These can be artificial skin for robotics, NDT inspection, data storage or neuronal activity monitoring, just to mention a few. Several mature technologies exist for field detection, but not all could match all the performance requirements as thin film magnetoresistive (MR) sensors. Highly advantageous are the field detectivity (down to 400 pTesla at 1 Hz), room temperature operation, monolithic integration with CMOS electronics, thermal stability (250ºC), small size (from ~100 µm to ~100 nm) and (most important here) readily scalable through top-down nanofabrication techniques providing a relatively low cost and ease of implementation with multi-wafer projects.
In this presentation we will explore the integration challenges of MR materials in flexible electronics, for fabrication approaches based on a) direct film growth on flexible substrates, b) top-down processing with flexible interlayers for final device detach, and c) hybrid integration of silicon rigid elements with flexible interconnections.
We will assess the microfabrication scalability and production costs, targeting at applications with challenging specifications where flexible MR sensors offer advantages over other technologies.
The presentation provides an overview on the potential of high-volume printing technologies for sensors in Healthcare and Wearable Technology applications based on examples of current R&D work in Printed and Hybrid Electronics at VTT. The use of expert knowledge in paper technology, printed electronics, hybrid integration, wireless communication and data analytics aims at creating low-cost, printed solutions as an alternative to expensive conventional sensor networks. With the growing demand for rapid and reliable disease testing and continuous vital parameter monitoring, roll-to-roll printing methods have the best potential to prove upscalability of diagnostic tests and wearable device technology for the mass market. VTT’s roll-to-roll pilot printing and hybrid integration facilities provide upscaling infrastructure for printed and hybrid devices at all product stages: from prototype to mass product.
Strideway is a modular, gait analysis platform featuring pressure sensitive tiles that can be field configured in lengths ranging from approximately 2 feet to over 16 feet in le
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