Sensing of joint and spinal bending or stretching via a retractable and wearable badge reel

Abstract

Human motions, such as joint/spinal bending or stretching, often contain information that is useful for orthopedic/neural disease diagnosis, rehabilitation, and prevention. Here, we show a badge-reel-like stretch sensing device with a grating-structured triboelectric nanogenerator exhibiting a stretching sensitivity of 8 V mm−1, a minimum resolution of 0.6 mm, a low hysteresis, and a high durability (over 120 thousand cycles). Experimental and theoretical investigations are performed to define the key features of the device. Studies from human natural daily activities and exercise demonstrate the functionality of the sensor for real-time recording of knee/arm bending, neck/waist twisting, and so on. We also used the device in a spinal laboratory, monitoring human subjects’ spine motions, and validated the measurements using the commercial inclinometer and hunchback instrument. We anticipate that the lightweight, precise and durable stretch sensor applied to spinal monitoring could help mitigate the risk of long-term abnormal postural habits induced diseases.

Progress in the Triboelectric Human–Machine Interfaces (HMIs)-Moving from Smart Gloves to AI/Haptic Enabled HMI in the 5G/IoT Era

“…Apart from the movements of upper limbs, spinal bending is also essential towards a more complete pose monitoring. A badge-reel-like stretch sensor based on a similar grating-structured TENG was reported by Li et al as shown in Figure 3h [173]. By analyzing the generated peaks' number, high sensitivity of 8 V mm −1 and a minimum resolution of 0.6 mm with good robustness and low hysteresis can be achieved for this wearable badge reel, which can be used for patients' spinal shape change monitoring when serving as a rehabilitation brace.…”

Recent Progress in the Energy Harvesting Technology—From Self-Powered Sensors to Self-Sustained IoT, and New Applications

“…Eventually, virtual training demonstrations of ping-pong program and punch program are realized real-time processing by equipping this exoskeleton. In Figure 6d, Li et al reported a retractable and wearable badge reel-based sensor with a grating structured TENG for sensing the joint's and spinal's bending or stretching [240]. Compared above mechanical structures that rely on limbs' motions, this sensor has a light weight of 9.6 g, a diameter of 33 mm, and a thickness of 10 mm.…”

Intelligent facemask based on triboelectric nanogenerator for respiratory monitoring

“…As a new energy harvesting technology, triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) has invoked intense research interests since its invention in 2012. Based on the coupling effect of triboelectrification and electrostatic induction [16] , [17] , [18] , [19] , TENG can effectively harvest all kinds of mechanical energy in the environment [20] , including human motion [21] , [22] , [23] , wind energy [24] , [25] , [26] , water energy [27] , [28] , tire rotating energy [29] , vibration energy and so on. TENG is widely used in wearable [30] , intelligent sensing [31] , [32] , [33] , [34] , biomedical [35] , environmental protection [36] and other fields.…”