A wearable antenna to ease health monitoring

Keeping a tab on patients can become a tad easier for doctors as scientists have designed a new flexible antenna that could be stretched and easily integrated into wearable health monitoring devices.

The use of silver nanowires makes the devices so flexible that it can bend and stretch with a person's movement and that too without affecting the frequency it transmits.

The researchers applied silver nanowires over a stencil to make a specific pattern and then poured a liquid polymer over the nanowires.

"Our antenna remains functional even when it is severely bent, twisted or stretched," Yong Zhu, an associate professor at North Carolina State University, was quoted as saying.

All wearable health monitoring sensors that measure bioelectronic signals from patients, such as their temperature, hydration or body motion need antennas to transmit the signals.

But the wearable devices are subject to deformation as the patients move.

"Our technique is relatively simple, and can be integrated directly into the sensors themselves," he said in a report that appeared in the journal Applied Materials and Interfaces.